Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Living in Light

 

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.  Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.  He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us, a pleasing aroma to God.  Let there be no sexual immorality, impurity, or greed among you.  Such sins have no place among God’s people.  Obscene stories, foolish talk, and coarse jokes—these are not for you.  Instead, let there be thankfulness to God.  You can be sure that no immoral, impure, or greedy person will inherit the Kingdom of Christ and of God.  For a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world.  Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him.  Don’t participate in the things these people do.  For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord.  So live as people of light!  For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.  Ephesians 5:1-9

Yesterday’s theme “Living in Darkness” made me eager to get to today’s “Living in Light”.  While there are all sorts of shades and degrees of both light and darkness, the character of a person’s life is dominated by one and plagued by the other.  Let me give you an extreme example. 

Dr Billy Graham’s life was lived not only in the light of TV cameras and the public eye, but also the light of Christ.  Adolph Hitler lived in the tormented and twisted darkness.  Light drives darkness away in the same way that darkness can hide the light.

Another “extreme” is assigning light or darkness to the motives of what people choose to do.  It is called judging, and a careful investigation of the meaning of that word, Biblically-speaking, reveals it applies to what’s in the heart of another human being.  And that is God’s purview, not man’s.

In the news currently is the issue of abortion.  Hearing from both sides of this bitter public debate, ongoing for more than half a century, only the naïveté of a child, or an evil agenda could say the issue is clear.  On the one hand, hearing from those who favor allowing abortion at any moment, the ideal of freedom over one’s choices appears preferable, than allowing 9 judges to legislate her choices, when they’ve never even met the woman, nor heard of her circumstances.  On the other hand, a choice to terminate a pregnancy is a choice to kill.  And there are laws against that, with which not many sane persons would disagree.  There are shadows of light and darness, no matter which way we see the dilemma.  And so, we are plagued by either light or darkness in our choices.

To live in the light, as Paul encourages, is not as simple as not telling a joke with coarse filthy language, or being foolish.  The chair I’m sitting on doesn’t do that, but it cannot be called Christian or Godly, simply because it doesn’t tell obscene jokes.  Neither can we be called “Christian” because one attends church.  Living in the light is allowing both heart and hand (allegiance and actions) to be governed by He who has created us.

In short, it is a matter of what we do with that freedom granted us.  Not the freedom of the U.S. Constitution, but the freedom with which Christ opened eternal life to all who will believe.  The true act of living in the light of Christ is the choice of surrendering that freedom in favor of serving He who died for us.

For You Today

Considering the upcoming celebration of our nation’s birth on July 4th, what determines your highest allegiance…personal freedom, or light?

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

For other posts on this topic:  Small Package - Big Message and Subway Sermon

[1] Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©   

No comments:

Post a Comment