Light versus Dark, Part 2

So what is so great about light?  Well, it is a great disinfectant!  It readily kills germs and it will cleanse us too, once we develop enough willingness to place our "germs" out there to be disinfected. Once we tell someone else all our dirty little secrets, the power that those secrets once carried vanishes into thin air.  The yoke of oppression we carried around due to those secrets is and always will be heavier than the yoke of Jesus.  I hear this saying often, 'We are only as sick as our secrets.' How true! Our soul sickness is caused by a self imposed prison sentence.  We convict and condemn ourselves to a spiritual death when we hang on to these things.  Yet, we hang on to them because our pride cannot stomach the ridicule and shame that comes from their disclosure to someone other than ourselves.  Therefore, we can all agree that our pride, at least false pride, is out to kill us, not so much physically as spiritually.  And that's the worst death of all!  

Coming into the light (bringing our secrets to others attention) is painful.  Yet, light always comes at a cost.  In my house, I have to flick a switch that then opens up the circuit to let power flow to the light bulb so that it may shine.  The higher the watts, the higher the voltage used, and thus the more resistance involved.  So, in obtaining more light, we encounter more resistance which is equivalent to friction.  So the brighter the light, the greater the friction.  The pain and costs are higher depending on how bright you want to be.  How clean and free do you want to be?

The same is true for a candle.  You must first light the wick which results in a burning process. Burning suggests suffering.  Therefore, people like Martin Luther, Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, and Calvin all endured suffering, and that suffering produced in them a light so bright they are talked and written about to this very day. On the contrary, there is very little cost to keeping things in the dark.  Yet, while keeping my sins a secret may protect me from harm in the material world, it will undoubtedly cause irreparable damage to us in the spiritual world.  

So, I find the following at work in all peoples lives.  There will be those who choose to live in the dark, i.e. keep their sins to themselves.  These folks do not suffer much in this world.  For example, they may not have had their story written up in the local newspaper about how they were arrested for driving drunk or lost their job due to public records documenting a problem with drugs and alcohol.  Yet, inside they are a dying a painful death marked by secrecy.  These folks gain on earth, but lose in the spiritual world.  Then there are those who have endured a public spectacle after having all their "dirty laundry" aired for everyone to see.  They will likely have "trouble in this world."  They may find it hard and difficult to obtain employment, friends (or those that seemed to be friends) may alienate them, and they may have to go through a time of exquisite loneliness.  Yet, what does Jesus say?  Take heart, I have overcome the world!  So, this last person may lose out in this world, but gain a life of eternal spirit that cannot be measured in human terms.  The most important question then becomes, which would you rather be?  Is it really worth gaining the whole world, only to lose your soul for all eternity in the process?

Light versus Dark, Part 1

The Bible and the spiritual world in general are replete with the concept of light and darkness.  Jesus is the "light of the world."  Before God's creation, darkness predominated.  Then God said, "Let there be light!"  Blindness implies darkness and it is mentioned over and over in the New Testament along with many accounts of Jesus restoring sight to the blind.  

I think it is quite understood that light represents goodness while darkness represents evil or badness. Before God's creation, darkness pervaded the depths of matter.  Out of this primordial ooze, God created light, and established goodness into His created world.  The fall, represented by Adam and Eve's disobedience of God fueled by pride in wanting to be on the same level as God, brought darkness or sin or evil back into God's created world.  The cosmos and the earth at one time were spotless without any defect.  In the creation story, after each day it is noted that God, "Saw that it was good. If it was all good in the beginning and Adam and Eve stained the goodness forever through their one act, then we are currently living in a dark world. Yet, Jesus came (the 2nd Adam) and gave us light. He became the light of the world and showed us the way into a life here on earth that is filled with goodness and righteousness.  

However, many of us today are just like the people of Jesus' day.  They expected him to overturn the oppressive local Jewish government that coordinated with the more oppressive imperial Rome.  They expected him to relieve them of all their suffering and bring about a Utopian existence.  Basically, they were sitting in their "Lazy Boys" reclining and waiting for the miracle that would change their lives for the better. However, Jesus did not operate like that then and still doesn't to this very day.  Jesus came and comes today to show us the way. He does not do the work for us, he points to the way. He redirects our journey from a path of destruction to a path of eternal life by nudging us backward toward a creation that was once all good.  Don't misunderstand me here.  Jesus is not passive and I'm not advocating that point.  Yet, we know that Jesus will never force us to follow him.  He never did with any of his original disciples and he will not today.  He asks us to follow and quickly moves on.  He lays out the requirements and continues to move on.  But he will never, ever beg or plead or argue.  He may weep at your decision not to follow, but he will not hound you incessantly.  Why?  Because Jesus knows, just as we all should, that we are "cut from the same cloth" as God.  We were created in God's image and we know the difference in good and bad.  If we had not been created in God's image, if we had not come from an original unblemished state, maybe Jesus would take more time to plead with us.  He would plead and argue because we would be completely ignorant, knowing only darkness.  Yet, we know better.  Jesus is the great illuminator, making the way so bright and obvious that we cannot find any excuse for not following.  Mostly, we do not follow out of pure laziness or a desire to hang on to some of the dark items in stock.  But it is never nor will it ever be, out of plain ignorance.  He, Jesus, makes that possible.