Epiphany: Living in the Light
Through January 6, 2023 (Epiphany) I’ll be posting devotionals with a Christmas and Epiphany theme.
Happy New Year, readers! As we begin another year of Heaven On Wheels, I’d like to welcome all of our new subscribers and ask you to encourage your friends — Christian or not — to join in on our daily devotionals.
Maybe it’s just me, but on January 1 it seems like we’ve turned a corner from the darkness of winter and we’re all heading back toward the light. Many of the Epiphany devotionals so far have dealt with the theme of light, and today we hear again from the Apostle John:
“This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:5-7 NLT
In this epistle, John continues to describe God as light. Here he passes along the message with the authority of one who has heard the truth from Jesus. In other words, he tells the readers about God as he has learned it from God. By describing God as light, John tells us that God is perfect; infinite, eternal and unchangeable.
John explains that those who say they walk with God but continue to live a life of spiritual darkness are lying to themselves, others, and God. John did not look at the world in shades of gray as many of us do, but rather in very black and white terms. I’m sure we all know someone who declares that they’re Christian, but lives a public life that shows the world that they don’t embrace the Light of Jesus Christ. You know from their actions, words, and thought patterns that they “are not practicing the truth.”
I’m thinking of one man in particular who told my wife and I a few years ago that “he has God in his life”. All of his actions during a situation where he could have reached out to God and other believers for support, love, and fellowship seem to indicate that he is “not practicing the truth”, instead embracing a dark and seemingly hate-filled path.
Being illuminated by God’s light would have had him seeking out the assistance of loving friends and relatives; instead, he has chosen a journey stumbling in the dark alone, shunning fellowship, and repeating sin patterns that move him further away from the Light.
It is for individuals like this person that I pray each and every day, with the hope that some day he truly does seek and “see the light” of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Heaven On Wheels Daily Prayer:
Father, I praise and thank You all day, every day for Your gift of the precious blood of Jesus which cleanses me from my sin and identifies me with His righteousness. Your grace gave me the choice to either walk in your dazzling light, or live my life in the dark shadow of the world, the flesh, and the enemy. I’ve chosen to walk in the light with Jesus, with the hope of a closer fellowship with Him. In His name I pray, AMEN.