LIGHT AND REST

In John 1 we read that in Jesus was life and that life was the light of men.  What does that mean?  In Jesus was the Life of God (zoe: without death or stress) because He knew the Love of God (agape: love without any strings attached), which brought understanding (Light) to Him of His Father.  Even so, for those of us who are children of God, in us dwells the Life of God in the person of the Holy Spirit.  That life is meant to produce an understanding of the ease and rest in God.

This Life of God is a choice we make every day.  It is not just a one-time choice when we get born again.  Every day, before we get out of bed, we are already making choices.  Are we frenetically planning our day so that we can get all accomplished that we have to do?  Or are we taking the time to rest in the Lord, abide in His Love and enjoy His Presence?  Out of that calmness comes revelation or understanding of our day.  He will show us what to do.  He will guide us.  He is in charge.

We may have a thousand things on our mind and a multitude of things to do.  That kind of mentality produces stress, which produces sickness and disease, which leads to our early departure from this earth.  You see, satan has it all figured out.  He doesn’t have to do a frontal attack on us most of the time.  He can just stress us to death.  That takes care of us.  We are gone.  And he starts on the next one and the next one and the next one.

Jesus rested in His Father’s care.  He was always at ease and joyful because He knew His Father’s love for Him.  Out of the love of the Father came the life of the Father (zoe) that knows no unrest and stress.

In our Lord is perfect peace, which comes from His indwelling perfect love.  That perfect love produces a perfect life.  That perfect life guides us into the perfect Light (understanding, revelation) of His Presence.  In His Presence is fullness of joy.  Joy is the strength of our lives.  Joy is the product of LIFE.

There is the natural life and there is the eternal, God kind of Life (zoe).  I know that every one of us will choose the God kind of life.  There is no other way to live and be free of stress, anxiety and fretting.  In these days we need to focus on God’s Love inside us which produces God’s Life flowing through us and shows forth God’s Light for all the world to see that we are different.  Let His Light shine and they will come to you.  “What is different about you?” they will ask, and you can tell them.  What a divine way to witness!  We let our lives speak.  He does the rest.

LIGHT

Romans 13:11-14 could be a scripture Paul wrote today, this very hour.  Let us listen to the voice of these verses.

It is a critical hour.  It is high time to wake up out of our sleep to reality.  Our final deliverance is at hand, nearer to us now than when we first believed.  The night is far gone.  The day is almost here.  Let us then cast off the works of darkness and put on the FULL ARMOR OF LIGHT.  Put on, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill its desires.

What a scripture passage this is.  Do you see the solution to the darkness of this present hour for all of us?  Put on the armor of light; put on Jesus Christ; put on the full armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18).

For a few minutes, let’s look at the Light of God.  Jesus is called the Word of God in John 1:1.  In the Psalms we read that the entrance of the Word brings light.  Here in Romans 13 we are instructed to put on the armor of light.  In Ephesians 6 we are told to put on the full armor of God.  Every part of that armor is a reference to the word, Jesus, the Light of the world.

What does light do?  It dispels the darkness.  Wherever there is light, there cannot be darkness because one little sliver of light means that it is no longer dark.  Think about that for a moment.  The instant you read God’s Word, you speak His Word, you meditate His Word, the Light of God is there for you, in your mind and in your heart.  It is the Word.  It is the Light.  In the very beginning of the creation, God spoke Himself into the very atmosphere of this earth.  LIGHT, BE!  In essence He was saying:  ME, BE!  What He is, He spoke out of Himself into this earth.  What makes God God is what created this earth.  Light is at the root of the formulation of life.  Without light, life as we know it could not be.

Light makes manifest, reveals.  Light is understanding, as darkness is pushed back.  Have you ever been pondering something, trying to understand it and all of a sudden it is like a light bulb comes on and you exclaim, I see!  That’s what we are talking about.  God wants to bring understanding to us of His ways, His Kingdom, His life.  And His Word is the key to unlock that understanding.  Without His Word, there is not the foundation for understanding Him.  The Holy Spirit takes His Word and shows us the Truth of it, the reality of the inner workings of God.  As Psalm 119 expresses it:  His Word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.  The entrance of His Word gives light, brings understanding.

Any time that you are “in the dark,” pondering the way to do something, go to God the Word and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you the way to do it, the decision to be made, the pathway to take.  He is faithful and will provide the answer every time.  What we must do is be patient and trust Him to bring us the understanding that we need to walk on through to victory.