GOD IS LIGHT August 3, 2020

This weekend, the city had rotating whole day brown-outs.  Understandably, it was uncomfortable, and we had to take lunch outside, what with mother bringing out the folding dinner table for a refreshing lunch ‘al fresco’.  I can only imagine during the time of our ancestors when they did not have electricity yet, installed in the homes.  No wonder my great-grandparents managed to have almost a dozen offspring.  There was really nothing much to do once evening comes.

 

Electrical power is indeed something that modern-day civilization can’t do without.  It is even almost equivalent to our basic physiological needs.  We use it to store food longer, to bathe, to wash and maintain our clothes, and to make our homes and shelters more comfortable to live in.  However, the process of generating and distributing it has been a contentious issue in the past decades, because many countries around the world are still using fossil fuels like coal, which is the greatest air polluter, causing imbalances in the atmosphere leading to severe climate conditions and fluctuating temperatures.  Only a few countries and organizations however, can afford the investment in clean energy.  As a collective community, then, at the very least, our efforts should be geared towards making sure this is affordable, while also ensuring that we do not contribute to the further decline on our environment, causing more strain on our rapidly-depleting natural resources.

 

Sadly, no matter how brilliant the ideas and the financial size of the investments, no human effort has yet achieved the ideal of ensuring adequate power supply to all the ends of the habitable portions of the earth, in a way that we do not run out of both natural resources and funds.

 

But as believers we know, that there is one source of light in our lives that can never be dimmed by the blackest black outs—we have a GOD who is the GOD of light.  Now, the enemy, as Jesus Christ has said, masquerades as an angel of light.  We can know however when light is fake, and when it is genuine.  Like any electrical light-emitting apparatus, true light emanates from within; it is not just a mirror or reflection of some other source.  Light is light, but a reflection is basically just a satellite.  Our GOD of true light is one where: (Revelation 21:23) “…the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of GOD did lighten it, and the Lamb is its light.”

 

And so it is with life.  We know if we have the light of GOD in our lives, if our innermost being is filled with His light, peace, wisdom and joy.  True, there may be times when we feel scared, we feel down and depressed, and we sometimes feel that certain situations are too difficult and impossible to solve, but we can have assurance that there will always be deliverance and salvation, there will always be provision, and His light to guide us through.

 

The Word today explains exactly these things, in the first epistle of the Apostle John, chapter 1, especially verse 5: “This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that GOD is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.”

 

When we feel surrounded by darkness, we need only to run to our Father of Light, humble ourselves and seek His forgiveness.  Whatever we have done, He will always be faithful to welcome us and let us bask in His presence, as verse 9 says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

 

Even the electrical light of this world can cause blindness, like in the condition, ‘light-blindness’, which sometimes happen to astigmatic people like me.  However, we learn that with GOD in our lives, there is only peace, there is no light-blindness; there is only right perception, and there is only joy, as in verse 4: “And we write these things unto you, that your joy may be full.”  Let’s heed His call then, for us to let our light shine (Matthew 5:16), so that the rest of the world may glorify our Father in heaven, and they too learn to call on and begin to worship our GOD, the GOD of light.