I Am the Light of the World

"I am the Light of the world" John 9:5

You see a man broken, held down by and infirmity that he could not control. A man who is blind. A man who is suffering with no way of escape. A man living in darkness. He had no power to take his blindness away. It was a fact of his existence.

       But one day, a Light came, someone who had the ability to take his blindness away! Now this man did something very strange, He made clay from His spit and dirt; then He applied the clay to the man's eyes saying, "Go, was in the pool of Siloam (which is translated sent"). This man who was blind went, trusting if he washed, he would regain his sight!

     We look at this story and say o this is nice, what a great act of compassion! The truth is that this is the story of all of us. We all walk in darkness. We all are broken. We are slaves to sin. We by our power cannot stop ourselves from sinning no matter how hard we try! We seem powerless to stop ourselves. Sure we might do something good that builds us up for a while but after that we are crushed back down in despair. Not free.

     Or we have recognition of our sin. We look at our lives and say, "You know what, we are good." When in truth we are blind to our sin that we are doing.... I feel I have spent to much time on this, let's get back to Christ.

      So we walk in darkness, then all of a sudden there is a Light we have never before seen! A Light that passionately calls us to come forward! A Light that beckons, and as you move toward it, you begin to realize that the darkness around you starts to fade. Your ideas of what is true begins to alter... Before you could see nothing due to the sin that blinded you to the truth. But now, as you run toward the Light, you see a world that is vibrant and full of life!

     Now I believe this is the perfect place to point out something truly interesting. That Christ when healing the blind man didn't do it right there. But called the man to a leap of faith. Yes Christ did everything to heal the man. But Jesus left the decision to be healed, to come out of darkness completely up to the man! The man couldn't not have been healed if Christ didn't first call him, but at the same time He wouldn't have been brought out of darkness if He didn't trust Jesus.

     In the same way, Jesus calls us out of the darkness. He calls us to the Light so that He can makes us His lights in the world. But He does not force us to come to Him! O how gracious is He to let His light shine into our darkness! So that we may choose to follow Him and shine His light in the darkness!

True Love is Worth the Fight

I have been thinking about love. Well let's go deeper, I have been thinking about true love and what it is. What is true love, is it just some feeling? Yes, but it is so much more than a feeling! Is it a choice? Yes, but it is so much more than a choice! I would say that love is a mix of these crazy emotions of joy and these even crazier choices we make from that joy! Because love would not be love without the joy. Nor would love be love without the choice. The reason I bring this up is because you see Jesus' ultimate sacrifice of love is a choice mixed with joy, or rather a choice made because of joy. In Hebrews(I don't remember the reference but I will find it) you see that Christ endured the cross, this horrible bloody thing, for the Joy set before Him. He looked forward and saw the Joy and chose to sacrifice, even though it took everything that He was, because he loved us. It was an act of Love.
         At the same time as seeing Jesus sacrificing all He is for us, you also see Him retaining who He is as a person. In other words, even though He gave everything; He did not lose who He was. He wasn't identified by what He did for others, but He was identified by who loved Him. GOD. He was loving other from something that was truer than anything else. God loved Him, and that love could never be taken away.
            Now let me state that we will fail at this at times; We will make mistakes, but that does not mean we shouldn't live out of God's love to the best of our ability and trust Him for the rest.


Hebrews 12:2 " look steadfastly to Jesus the leader and completed of faith, who, for the Joy set before Him, endured the cross..."