John 8:12 Jesus spoke to the people once more and said,
“I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in
darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.”
1 John 1:7
But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship
with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all
sin..
Brief BC story (Before Christ in my life) with an obvious lesson: As a “pot head” college
student on summer break, I worked as a counselor at a Jewish summer camp in the
Catskill Mountains of NY state for 2 summers (1969 and 1970). It was heavily
wooded and there were no lights on at night. In the middle of a moonless night,
several of us counselors decided to walk from point A to point B and none of us
thought to bring a flashlight because “we knew the way.” It was so dark you
couldn’t see your hand in front of your face. Along the path we took was a large
rock that was level with the ground on one side and a few feet off the ground
on the other. Need I say what happened when I got to the other side? OUCH L.
John 8:12 “ Jesus spoke to the people once more and
said, ‘I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because
you will have the light that leads to life.’ ”
Psalm 139:12 “ but even in darkness I cannot hide from
you. To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same
to you.”
John 1:3 “ All things were made through Him, and
without Him nothing was made that was made.
4
In Him was life, and the life was
the light of men.
5
And the light shines in the
darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.”
For those of us who didn’t know anything about the Bible, especially
anything from the New Testament, before we got saved, this Biblical concept of light
was totally new. It implies something supernatural, something beyond
intellectual understanding. Without this “light that leads to life,” we lived
in all kinds of ways, searching for role models and/or legalistically following
a written set of do’s and don’ts. We followed the crowd on destructive paths.
These next verses describe the change of heart when we received the Light of
the World onto the throne of our heart:
Ephesians 5:8 “For
you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of
light.”
Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city that
is set on a hill cannot be hidden.”
1 Peter 2:9 “But you are a chosen generation, a royal
priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the
praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;”
1 John 1:7 “But if we walk in the light as He is in the
light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His
Son cleanses us from all sin.”
I am so thankful for those believers who reflected the light of the
Gospel into my heart, and for the subsequent supernatural experience with God
leading me onto the path of life.
2 Timothy 1:10 “but has now been revealed by the appearing
of our Savior Jesus Christ, who has abolished death and brought life and
immortality to light through the gospel”
Matthew 5:16 “Let your light so shine before men, that
they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Another opportunity to blow the Pharisees minds
John 8:12 “Jesus
spoke to the people once more and said, ‘I am the light of the world. If you
follow me, you won’t have to walk in
darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.’ ”
The Accusation:
John 8: 13 “The Pharisees therefore said to Him, ‘You bear
witness of Yourself; Your witness is not true.’ ”
If you’ve been following these blogs, you’ve seen how Jesus perfectly
timed His confrontations with His adversaries. The Lord knows the hearts of men.
His love motivates Him to reach those hearts. Jesus was speaking so that those
gathered in the Temple would hear Him. He knew the nit-picking jealous
religious leaders where there and He set them up for failure as He did in each and
every confrontation. He intentionally sets them up to expose to the crowd their
legalistic ignorance of the Law, watering the seeds of the Truth previously
planted in their hearts. Makes one wonder when they
will realize the pain in their head will go away after they stop knocking it
against the wall.
2 Timothy 2:14 “ Remind the people of these facts, and
solemnly charge them in the presence of God to avoid petty controversy over
words, which does no good, and [upsets and undermines and] ruins [the faith of]
those who listen.
15 Study
and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by
trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully
teaching the word of truth.” [AMP]
The Pharisees rarely avoided the pettiness (verse 14) and Jesus always demonstrates
the better way (verse 15). All the purely intellectual study anyone can do is
good, and we are instructed to do so, but without the insight of Holy Spirit guiding us in that study, we will
never get it right.
Jesus then goes on to nail the Pharisees’ ignorance of prophecy
concerning who He, the Messiah, would be and of their hypocritical, critical,
judgmental spirit.
 |
| Pharisee |
14 Jesus told them, ‘These claims are valid even
though I make them about myself. For I know where I came from and where I am
going, but you don’t know this about me.
5 You judge me by human standards, but I do not
judge anyone’.” [NLT]
The Lord uses the Pharisees misunderstanding of the law, based their accusation in verse 13, to show that though they had intellectual knowledge of the letter of the Law of God, they had no knowledge of God. You can’t solve a problem until you define it and Jesus clearly does just that in the following verses.
John 8:17 “ ‘ It is also written in your law that the
testimony of two men is true.
18 I am
One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father who sent Me bears witness of
Me.’
19 Then they said to Him, ‘Where is Your
Father?’
Jesus answered, ‘You
know neither Me nor My Father. If you had known Me, you would have known My
Father also’.”
In conclusion:
Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world—like a city
on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.
1 Thessalonians
5:5 “For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to
darkness and night.”
1 John 2:7 “Dear friends, I am not writing a new
commandment for you; rather it is an old one you have had from the very
beginning. This old commandment—to love one another—is the same message you
heard before.
8 Yet it is also new. Jesus lived the truth of
this commandment, and you also are living it. For the
darkness is disappearing, and the true light is already shining.” [NLT]
Prayer: Father, we thank you
for shedding the light of the Gospel into our hearts and brains. Let your grace
and the power of Your Spirit continuously motivate and empower us to shine that
light to all we meet in this life. Let us sense the check in our spirit
whenever we fail to walk in the light for You, called us out of darkness into YOUR
marvelous light.” May it be said of YOUR Church, “that they may see our good
works and glorify YOUR Father in heaven”.
Paul prayed and so do we,
Philippians 3:10 “that I may know Him and the power of His
resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His
death”
Comments
Post a Comment