These words sound crazy as my fingers send them crawling across the screen, but I woke up this morning in the DARK and immediately began thinking about the LIGHT. With coffee brewing across the room and spraying its aromatic wonder through the air, the darkness had welcomed me to another day. But it also triggered the need to address how that same darkness can hijack our effort to be SPIRITUALLY DISCIPLINED, this blog’s theme for January.
How? Surprisingly, it’s less about LIGHT & DARK and more about LOVE & HATE.
People who love God’s light are living evidence of their new birth and secure place in eternity; and people who claim to be followers of Christ but hate are doomed to languish in darkness.
“If we say that we are in the light, yet hate others, we are in the darkness to this very hour. If we love others, we live in the light, and so there is nothing in us that will cause someone else to sin. But if we hate others, we are in the darkness; we walk in it and do not know where we are going, because the darkness has made us blind.” 1 John 2:9-11
This had a powerful impact on me early in my faith walk when I did not fully understand light and dark and love and hate. Eventually, God showed me that spiritually mature believers who understand the deity of Christ forcefully embrace God’s command to love him and love others. And that changed everything.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 22:37-39
As the apostle of love, John plays an instrumental role here because love is the benchmark of salvation fully manifest. We can take much out of that truth and apply it to our own faith walk today.
If a believer has truly been regenerated and transformed, they will cling to God’s light, striving to obey him in all things, and go out of their way to LOVE OTHERS.
I want to be continually regenerated and transformed by God’s love and light so I can obey him in all things and love others.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
What thoughts do the words hate, light, love, and darkness conjure up in you today?
“The people who live in darkness will see a great light. On those who live in the dark land of death the light will shine.” Matthew 4:16
“Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.” 1 John 4:20
