John 3:16-21
When our children were young it wasn't unusual to hear them cry out, terrified, in the night. My husband or I would race to their room and turn on a light, ask what was wrong, and comfort them till they could fall back to sleep. Their reason for waking was most often a bad dream, and waking up in a dark room compounded the fear.
We associate darkness with evil. The cloak of darkness is used by those who would cause harm, it's when they find the victim most vulnerable.
In John 3:19 Jesus shares with Nicodemus that He is the "Light that has come into the world". This Light would shine into the darkness and uncover the evil deeds of mankind. Those doing evil hated and feared the light. Look at who hated Christ while He was on earth - Matthew 26:3 tells us it was the "...chief priests and the elders of the people who assembled in the palace of the high priest" and plotted to arrest and kill Jesus. The religious leaders hated Jesus because He uncovered the wrong they were doing; thier greed, wickedness, refusal to do justice and love God, they were proud and burdened the people by hindering thier understanding of the kingdom of God (see Luke 11:37-53).
The people of the day were victims of this darkness, how terrified they must have been of their leaders. Enter Jesus - the Light that dispelled darkness, and comforted the people with this truth:
"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him. Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son."
John 3:16-18
My mind went racing back to a devotion I led with a group of women. I am a very visual learner and God imprinted the simplicity of this example on my mind. We made a 10 x 20 size room as dark as we could (almost an impossible feat in this day of modern electricity)and then we lit a candle...a small, small flame. The mass of darkness in the 10 x 20 room could NOT consume the light from the flame, no matter how hard the darkness tried it could not overcome the light. May it remind us of John 1:5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. Ahhh the beauty of my dark heart filled with light, no matter how the devil attacks me, he will never ever snuff out the light(Jesus)in me.Amen
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