Walking in Darkness
“Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12
“And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.” John 1:14
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105
One time I woke in the middle of the night and was too tired and lazy to turn on a light to see my way to the bathroom. I crashed into a wall and gave myself a bloody nose. No joke. It hurt, the blood was yucky, but my experience walking in darkness that night was nothing compared to how I walked in darkness for decades. If you think I’m going to tell you I walked in darkness for years because I didn’t believe in the Lord Jesus Christ who is the light of the world, and because I was drenched in sin and brokenness headed straight for hell, you are only partially correct. Maybe you can relate. See, even when I found the love and light of Christ, I still found myself constantly stumbling and falling in darkness.
Ever walked in the pitch black with a flashlight you refused to take out of your pocket and turn on and use? Or stumbled through the darkness of your house, jail cell, homeless shelter, or campsite, tripping and falling because you refused to turn on a light or use a flashlight? That’s what my life looked like after I came to believe in Christ as Lord. I had been forgiven my sins by God because I had found the light of the world. But tragically I quickly jammed Jesus in my pocket and tried to get on with my life pretty much without Him. Only years later did I see the light. Literally.
Jesus is the light of the world. We need to repent and believe in Christ and turn to God and His ways for forgiveness and eternal life. Jesus is the Word of God. The Word of God is also the Bible. To walk daily in the light, we need a personal, growing relationship with God through Christ, to be filled with and led by God’s Spirit, and to study and apply the Bible to our lives as His Spirit by the lamp of the Bible lights our pathway. For years, I intellectually believed in Christ. I had no personal relationship with God nor did I study the Bible. When I finally started studying the Bible, I didn’t apply it to my life. I was constantly crashing in my sin, into walls, doors, people, stuff, circumstances, still broken, constantly falling, not changing, stuck in my brokenness. Genuine followers of Christ as I by God’s great mercy have so blessedly become believe in Christ as Lord and learn to live by the lamp of the Bible in the power of His Spirit.
Walking in the light? It’s time, isn’t it?