Light Has Come into the World

October 24, 2024

Thursday

Not everyone is militant toward Christians, but you must wonder why they are. Maybe they want to be told that our faith is just a religion that is practiced like a hobby that will not affect them. When we point out what sin is and the need for a Savior, they are indignant and take umbrage in our statements of righteousness. How dare anyone say that they don't have the right to live like they want to live!

Generally, people do not like to be corrected. Especially if the correction exposes them. While we should be gentle in our corrections, we still need to correct while admitting our own faults. Some people think that we think we are perfect. That is so far from the truth. Our condition is one of knowing what we should have and shouldn't have done. Our guilt is far greater than the one outside the faith who sins unknowingly. 

That should make us embrace repentance rather than resist it. That doesn't always happen because we have the same sinful nature that the worldly person has. We simply don't like being told we are wrong either. Repentance and confession are infrequent even among Christians. It shouldn't be that way.

I think it strange that we deny our own evil almost as much as the worldly person does. When I talk to people about hatred, they rarely tell me of someone they hate. When I speak of unforgiveness, they seem to have forgiven everyone.

Today, I took a train trip. I bid up to get in the Business Car but that was a mistake. A group of ladies who were evidently on a girls' trip sat in the four seats at the back of the car that faced each other. They constantly criticized and gossiped about family and friends. They talked of their own righteous actions while castigating the actions of family and friends. They supported each other in this mud fest. If I could separate them from their friends, I believe they would have told me that they have no one they hate or haven't forgiven. As long as we stay in the dark, our sins don't look that bad.

A sudden light turned on in a dark room is painful. We resist it by shutting our eyes tightly. We tell the one who turned it on, to turn it off. Or, as we often do, "Warn us the next time you are about to turn on the light." Spiritual light exposes our sins. That light can sting but it also allows us to get things right.

When we tell others of their sins, we must never do so smugly. We have come into the light and lead others into the light. Yes, it sets us apart but it doesn't make us better than others. It just claims that we are forgiven.

John 3:19–21 (ESV)¹⁹ And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. ²⁰ For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. ²¹ But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.”