JESUS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD
02nd Dec 2020
Today we are getting out our Advent Star. It was given to us many years ago when Charles was ministering in the former East Germany, before the wall came down. It comes from a community in Herrnhut where Count Zinzendorf started his 100 year prayer meeting which has had such a profound influence on today’s 24/7 Prayer movement. It symbolises the light coming into the darkness, displacing and eradicating it. Darkness flees in the presence of light.
Our eldest son, a very black and white character, was into caving when he was younger and living in this area. It wasn’t a sport I particularly liked and insisted he leave me with a map and his expected time to return. I had to battle fear while he and his friends loved the adventure.
Craig enjoyed taking groups for caving trips, including those in a drug rehab unit in our town, who considered themselves tough! But once underground, in the dark, they were out of their comfort zone. He would ask them to turn off their head torches so they could experience total darkness, and then he would tell them, “Hell is like this - no light, eternal darkness.” It had quite a sobering effect!
Until Jesus came as the “Light of the world” we are told spiritual darkness, thick darkness covered the earth, but God in His mercy sent His light manifest in Jesus so that we could receive His light within us in the person of the Holy Spirit.
When light appears we see things around us clearly. I need a lot of light when I am knitting complicated patterns. At this time of the year natural light in not enough to see clearly; light exposes grubbiness; you can be unaware of the dust until the light shines.
Some years ago I had an experience when God shone His light on an aspect of my behaviour He wanted to deal with. I was mortified when I saw myself through His eyes and could only cry out to be made clean and for His mercy to change me. I could do nothing to change or save myself. I asked for cleansing, mercy, a change of who I was. I needed to know that unless I allowed Jesus to deal with me in a radical death and resurrection manner, I would spend the whole of my life trying to change myself and never succeed.
I am so thankful for that light shining in my heart and His deliverance, but want to continue to live in that light and pray, “Shine your light on me, expose all that is in darkness.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 says, “For God who said, “Let light shine in darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
by Joyce Sibthorpe
