Life-spark: Light has come into the world. Get exposed! (John 3:17 –21)
In my early teens, some friends and I misbehaved one night. We threw a huge rotten pumpkin onto someone’s porch and watched it explode. Porch lights and yard lights came on. An angry man screamed obscenities. I ran for darkness as fast as I could
“God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil.” (John 3:19, NLT)
Jesus is God-light. God’s light is His revelation of Himself and of me. As I approach Jesus, the bright light reveals truth about God, and truth about me. Often in such situations I don’t like what I see about me. The Message paraphrase says that we fail to move toward God-light because we fear “a painful exposure.” (John 3:20, MSG)
I’ve learned first-hand that the closer I get to Christ, the more my sins and shortcomings are exposed. I become progressively aware of remaining areas of darkness in myself.
But, thank God, if I confess my sin, my rotten pumpkin bombs, God forgives my sins and helps me clean the porch. But if I make excuses or run from the light, those sins will be painfully exposed on the Day of Judgment. So I judge myself by how I respond to the light.
“God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NLT)
God tells us, through John, why He sent Jesus to planet earth. He did it to connect people to Him and His aliveness. The message of the Bible is not “God is ticked” but “God is love.” Jesus came into the world to be a savior, not a fault-finder, a lighthouse, not a spotlight.
Let’s be truth-tellers, confession-makers and light-lovers!
Life-challenge: Ask God to make you a light-lover, even if it means you’ll become more aware of sins He sees in your life.