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Good morning my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
This morning as it became light enough to see, I was amazed to find a thick fog bank to the east of my home, and as daylight came I could tell it would be impossible to see a normal sunrise. I was fascinated to watch how the sun penetrated and then overcame and finally dispersed the fog. I was reading John 8 and before my eyes was a practical example of the great things Jesus said 2000 years ago, to a group of people facing the same daily challenge you and I face, trying to discern truth you can trust, in a very confused, distorted, sometimes dark world.
So here are two or three important life questions to begin our day together:
1. How do you discern that something is not true, even if it’s only partially untrue, even if it’s a slight distortion of the truth?
2. Why is truth so important in the healthy function of any society of people?
3. What have you personally experienced are the damages done by deceitfulness, outright lies, distortions or manipulations of information, rejection of truth?
And finally this question… have you discovered that a relationship where trust has been broken by untruthfulness, requires more than simply an apology for true restoration to occur?
Today let’s join John the disciple as he reflects on one of the most significant conversations he was eye witness to with Jesus. You’ll find it in John chapter 8. Let’s begin with verse 12: “When Jesus spoke again to the people, He said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
We’ve all had the experience… it’s a dark night, you are with two or three people walking along together and only one of you has a flashlight. What do you do? You watch the light and follow very carefully, right?
Have you noticed that light can penetrate darkness, like a flashlight or car headlights on a dark country road? Light can also illuminate an area like street lights or even stadium lights. And light can dispel darkness like the sunrise. I love watching the early morning rays of dawn in the east, while the darkness still reigns in the west. But it doesn’t take long and the darkness simply cannot hold its ground, it is overpowered by the prevailing sunlight and flees, as the brightness of sunrise conquers the night and brings a new day.
But what about the reverse… sunset? As the sunlight fades, the darkness once again encroaches. So which is more powerful, dark or light? As darkness envelopes the sky, gradually stars appear in the night sky. These far away floating, huge rocks were there all along, they simply were not visible in the overpowering daylight. It is only as darkness falls that these stars reflect the sunlight and their light pierces through the darkness, millions of light years, all the way to our eyes on planet earth. Oh the power of light!
But there is power in darkness too, isn’t there? Have you ever been in absolute darkness? A darkness so dark you cannot see anything, not even your hand in front of your face? What happened to your emotions in that thick darkness? Did you find fear welling up inside you? Did you begin to imagine things crawling in the room? Did you feel claustrophobic? Did you panic?
Now, what is Jesus telling us in John 8:12? May I suggest two important things? First, Jesus came to our world to BE Living TRUTH. He said it: “I am the way, the TRUTH and the life, no one comes to God the Father except by Me.” (John 14:6) Jesus was and everything Jesus did, was God’s truth in action! Jesus lived a truth filled life. He was consistent, reliable, honest, truthful, trustworthy, and most of all God honoring, holy…always with His actions and His attitudes. With His presence and His actions, Jesus confronted the darkness of evil and wickedness which is everywhere, in every country, every community, every family… because it’s in every human heart!
Jesus did it with His miracles in which He overcame the destructive effects of sin as He opened blind eyes, healed paralyzed limbs, open deaf ears and loosed mute tongues. Jesus even defeated the ultimate effect of sin, death, as He raised dead people to life. And Jesus defeated the reigning power of sin as He freed people from the domination of demonic powers. Do we understand my friends, that all these horrible things are the direct result of the power of sin?
Genesis 3 shows us that when Adam and Eve invited Satan to reign in our world, as they rejected God’s order, God’s presence, and trusted in Satan’s deception, the darkness of evil and wickedness replaced the brilliant light of God’s holiness in our world and in the human heart, and every manner of wickedness poured out in man’s evil toward each other. But also in illness, disease, birth defects, and even death…all the result of the reign of evil here on earth! Jesus LIVED the light of God’s Holiness in blazing contrast to the darkness of Satan’s evil. In doing so Jesus dispelled the evil darkness, thus His promise that those who walked with Him would not live overwhelmed by the darkness of evil all around them.
But Jesus dispelled the darkness of evil with His WORDS! His words of TRUTH countered the confusion, doubt, skepticism, distortion, fear, shame, pride and every other destructive way of thinking or emotion. Now ponder that a moment! With His words Jesus dispelled the darkness of the soul! The soul is our thinking, our emotions, our reason, our will. Over and over Jesus said “I tell you the truth…”! Why did Jesus say that so often?
Because then, as now, most of the words we hear or read or NOT fully true! God’s truth is always true, and Jesus spoke it consistently into every situation in which He found Himself. He challenged those who walked with Him to listen carefully, and He promised the Holy Spirit would lead us into all truth and would remind us of what Jesus had spoken. (John 14:26; 16:13) I have an important question… do you have a HUNGER for God’s truth? Is the Holy Spirit giving you the ability to DISCERN anything that is NOT fully true, by God’s standard of truth? What do you do when you encounter untruth?
Now watch this: Jesus dispelled the darkness of evil with His miracles, His presence and His words. With miracles He brought healing, health, strength, speech, hearing, sight, even life. With His presence, Satan and the demons fled! Darkness was dispelled. With His words He brought hope, healing of emotional wounds, joy, contentment, confidence, clarity and so much more. Jesus brought POTENTIAL into the lives of those in bondage to the darkness!
This is why Jesus said “If you hold to My teaching (truth) you are really My disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free!…So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” (John 8:31,32,36) It makes sense, doesn’t it? It works! If the light of God’s truth fills our minds and hearts, the truth will dispel the darkness of untruth, and evil thinking, evil emotions. We will be free from the bondage of suffocating evil darkness in our thinking and our emotions!
But please notice the importance of the words I underlined “If you hold to My teaching (truth)…” This is why I do “Walking with Jesus” with you each day… so we dig into God’s Word and grasp tightly, hold on for dear life, to God’s powerful, life saving TRUTH! Why? Because just like sunset at the end of a cloudless, brilliant day, as the sun sets in the west, the darkness comes creeping across the sky in the east! The evil darkness is all around us and will creep into your mind and heart is you do NOT hold tightly to Jesus’ truth!
In closing today, look at one more thing Jesus shocked the people with that day that really brought this all into focus: “You are of this world, I am not of this world. I told you that you would die in your sins if you do not believe that I am the one I claim to be, you will indeed die in your sins.” (John 8:24) It’s one thing to live life in the semi-darkness of living in a nice family or a nice community, even attending a nice church, while all along your heart and mind have way too much darkness. It’s another thing to live in the deep darkness of a broken evil life, in the dungeons of society. But the ultimate tragedy is to end up in the eternal darkness of hell, because you refused to deal with the darkness of sin in your life and you never fully trusted in Jesus to bring His life rescuing light of truth and power into your life, and you die in your sin and the darkness!
So today my friends… what about it? I look out my window now, several hours after that foggy sunrise I described earlier, and there’s not a cloud in the sky, the sun is high and brilliant. Not even a trace of darkness. The light has prevailed over the darkness. Oh that is my deep desire for my life. . .how about you my friends? I am determined to live John 8:12,31,32,36 everyday as I ‘walk with Jesus’, will you walk with us?
Oh Lord Jesus I thank you for the power and truth of John 8! Help me live it powerfully today. I lift up before you every person hearing my voice, or reading these words, and I pray, oh God, that they may experience the liberating power of Jesus today, as they reject the evil darkness in their lives and turn to You alone, Jesus, and grasp tightly, Your TRUTH!
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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