The Light Exposes Who We Really Are

The Light Exposes Who We Really Are

"This is the judgment, that the Light has come into the world, and men loved the darkness rather than the Light, for their deeds were evil. For everyone who does evil hates the Light, and does not come to the Light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But he who practices the truth comes to the Light, so that his deeds may be manifested as having been wrought in God." - John 3:19-21

There are some things that just don’t like the light– at the top of the list are these four things: One cockroaches. Two, rats. Three, teenagers making out in a dark room, when a parent comes in and turns on the light. And four, a thief in the night. None of those four like the light. Why? Because the light says, “You’re up to no good!” So, obviously, there’s a tendency for roaches, rats, smooching teenagers, and thieves in the night to run for cover when the light comes on. They don’t want their deeds exposed.

Really, this is true for all of us. The closer we get to the Light, the more our sins are exposed. The closer a person is to Christ, the more aware they are of their sinfulness. The further a person is from Christ, the more unaware they are of their sinfulness and they tend to think that they’re basically pretty good people. So, when the Light exposes who they really are, they prefer to flee toward the darkness.

But there is good news in all of this. John 1:9 says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man.” And 1 John 1:9, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.” In other words, in Jesus, we are made clean – we don’t have to fear exposure. He is the Light that leads us into righteous living.

Right From the Heart is one of my devotions that I read and this particular one really stood out to me. Those who are actively sinning and don't want to change their ways cannot stand in the light of God, He burns them not because He is mean but because they are unwilling to let go of their sin, and it is the sin they are clasping on to that burns them so they need to flee into the dark. 

I have had the chance on many occasions to witness to those who are walking in sin and Scripture will shut them down every time. Who can argue with God? No one. His Words are living and active and they will either convict a person of the wrong they are doing and they will repent or that person will leave for the light that is shining on them they cannot tolerate for it exposes the evil that they choose not to let go of. 

Blessings,

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It Really Is Grace

HeartLight Daily Devotion 

"Doing What God Wants?" — WJD! for 02/20/2014

"Every person that does evil hates the light. That person will not come to the light. Why? Because then the light will show all the bad things he has done. But the person that follows the true way comes to the light. Then the light will show that the things that person has done were done through God." — John 3:20-21 (ERV)

Key Thought:

A life dedicated to God comes to his Light. A person living this kind of life doesn't fear judgment or rejection or truth. Falsehood, dishonesty, sinfulness, greed... all can be addressed through the lens of grace when those seeking righteousness come to the light. So the question you and I face each day is very simple: Do I gladly come to the Light to let God show me his grace in ways that allow me to see my sinfulness, shallowness, and selfishness and be transformed? My desire to open my life to the Light of God's truth and holiness reveals my desire to do what is right. My reluctance reveals how the power of sin has begun to edge its way into my life and my heart.

Today's Prayer:

Almighty Father, God of holiness and grace, search me and try me and convict me of my sin. I want to be holy and blameless, not just by your gift of grace, but also through the sanctifying power of your Spirit at work to transform me to be more like Jesus, in whose name I pray. Amen.

 

SIN

We are sinful people and these days nobody wants to acknowledge it. Everyone wants to think they are good and because of this all people will go to heaven or at least end up not existing anymore. That is a pleasant thought but, unfortunately, it is not true. How do you prove it? You can't. There needs to be a fear of the unknown and that fear should push us towards God in hope that He does exist and there is a heaven and that the only way into heaven is through the acknowledging of the fact that we are sinful and in need of a Savior. 

The path to salvation is very simple and easy but it is very, very narrow allowing only for salvation through Jesus Christ. Do we need to change ourselves before seeking this path? No, we just need to acknowledge our sinfulness and seek God. It is impossible for us to change ourselves but we can understand that we are sinful and that we need to repent and make amends for the wrong we have done. Jesus will change us. We come to Him just as we are with all of our doubt, repent for our wrong doing, accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior over our lives and Jesus will make us like Him. When we do this and fully seek Jesus we will change and understand the mystery of Scripture. 

Need Jesus? Check out my Have Jesus page. There is an explanation of salvation and a what you need to do section. You don't need to carry on in hurt and pain for there is a way to peace. The only peace that comes through the Living God, Jesus Christ. 

1 Peter 3:10-12 ESV

For
“Whoever desires to love life
and see good days,
let him keep his tongue from evil
and his lips from speaking deceit;

let him turn away from evil and do good;
let him seek peace and pursue it.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
and his ears are open to their prayer.
But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

Need to talk about it? Email me I would be happy to help you understand. 

 
Blessings,
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Did He Really Say That?

Did God really say, "I will never put more on your shoulders than what you can handle"?

This morning, I had this conversation with my husband. I told him, God will never put more on your shoulders than what you can handle and he told me that wasn't Biblical. Huh? That stopped me in my tracks and I was determined to show him that yes indeed this was Scriptural. Guess what? I was wrong. Gulp, I have yet to apologize to my husband as I kind of got lost doing some research and here is what I found.

1 Corinthians 10:13 NIV
No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

Notice in this verse it says tempted not bare. This verse is talking about idolatry. The temptation that is mentioned is the one to abandon God to other things, like other gods, sex, etc., and how God has provided for us a way out. James 4:7 tells us how. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

Psalm 68:19-20 NIV

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,

    who daily bears our burdens.

Our God is a God who saves;

    from the Sovereign Lord comes escape from death.

Psalm 68 is talking about sin and God's provision from escaping the effects of sin, eternal death, not from a stressful job, disease, financial dept or a poor relationship.

The opposite of the statement, 'God will never put more on your shoulders than what you can handle', is 'God will put more on you, in order to crush you.' This statement is true.

Hebrews 12:4-7 NIV

In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood. And have you completely forgotten this word of encouragement that addresses you as a father addresses his son? It says,

“My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline,

    and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,

because the Lord disciplines the one he loves,

    and he chastens everyone he accepts as his son.”

Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as his children. For what children are not disciplined by their father?

So, it would be better to say that God will not put more on us than what Jesus can bare. And, my friend, He can bare A LOT. Actually, He bares all things.

Romans 5:1-5 NIV 
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Isaiah 53:4-6 NIV

Surely he took up our pain

    and bore our suffering,

yet we considered him punished by God,

    stricken by him, and afflicted.

But he was pierced for our transgressions,

    he was crushed for our iniquities;

the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

    and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,

    each of us has turned to our own way;

and the Lord has laid on him

    the iniquity of us all.

You see, Jesus has taken it ALL for us. He is our burden bearer and when the load it just too heavy, we go to Him and ask Him to help us and He will. Jesus beckons us to come to Him. And I believe He does this in order for us sinful, prideful people to search Him out.

Matthew 11:28-30 NIV
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The call for the Christian is to suffer and to bear the cross that we have been given or to take up the cross and help someone else.

Matthew 16:24-25 NIV
Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it."

Today, people think that the Christian life is easy, a breeze, if you become a Christians your life will be full of Bible studies, get togethers and no financial issues. But, that is not the case at all. If you think this then you are believing a lie. The Christian life is hard, tough and if you are following God in a close walk then you will be persecuted and pursued by Satan. Satan wants to shut the Christian up and by the looks of our world, he has done a pretty good job at it.

The wonderful thing is God pursues us too! He sent His Son for us and if you read some of the Old Testament stories you will see that God does indeed pursue. Just go read the story of Jonah and just how far Father went to seek after him.

Luke 19:10 NIV
"For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

John 6:44 NIV
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day."

Although Satan attacks us, God has promised us a way out. Humble yourself and submit to God, resist the devil and he will leave, James 4:7. This is a spiritual war and a Christian that is fighting and wearing their armour are sure of attacks. Jesus is a Warrior Himself and if we keep ourselves in alignment with His Word, then He will protect us and crush the area we are fighting in of the influence of the devil.

Galatians 6:2 NIV
Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.

Christians are to bear each others burdens. We are to pray for one another and help one another out. If you see your brother struggling financially, help him out. If you see a homeless person hungry, feed them. We are the hands and feet of Jesus and we are to do His work while we are here on earth. There are many people out there who don't know God and His awesome promises and love, we need to spread His word and the best way to do this is by preaching His Word followed by spreading His love in our actions.

So the statement, God will not put more on your shoulders than what you can bare is 100% false. That in itself is a god, the god of self, thinking that we can bare the burden of sin. That we, in our own strength, can walk through this life and come out victor. No way! If God found it pleasing to crush His own Son, then it is pleasing for Him to crush us too. For if we turn to Him and seek Him He will help us during this trial just like He helped Jesus while He hung on the cross.

Proverbs 8:14 NIV

I love those who love me,

    and those who seek me find me.

Reference: Misused Bible Verses

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Blessings,
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Divine Healing

Does it happen today? 

James 5:13-14 NIV

Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 

The necessary requirement for healing is that first we need to desire to be healed and we need to seek God's face pursuing Him to heal us. We also need to confess our sins and faults not only to God but also to at least one or two others from whom we can trust and to those whom we have sinned against.

I think what most of us are lacking today is the public confession of our sins. 

Although not all illness is caused by unconfessed sin many of our illnesses are or they are intensified by them. Guilt, resentment, envy, jealousy, hatred and bottled-up negative emotions will create destruction in us both physically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually. We need to resolve and clear them away for the healing to begin.

Daddy got my attention when I came down with Rheumatoid Arthritis. When I went to Bethel Church in Redding CA, the first thing they had me do was go through repentance, rebuking and asking Father to forgive me for the sins of my past. I was handed 2 sheets of paper full of prayers and Bible verses and told to go over it in private and then repent to those whom I have sinned against and ask their forgiveness. I was then prayed over and told that if God brought to my mind any sins from my past that I had not repented of then to just go through the process of repenting, rebuking and seeking forgiveness.

While searching through Scripture, Father really pressed it on me to live a life separate from the world. To put my eyes on Jesus and my heavenly reward, to clean up my thoughts by removing things that cause me to sin and to think on, 'would I listen, watch or read this if Jesus was in the room with me listening, watching and reading it too.' When I put it in that perspective, I made a complete 180 turn and RAN from those things that are not pleasing to my precious Jesus. A lot of people are not healed because they hold on to their sins or they repent but continue to live in a sinful life. We MUST change our lives around if we want to be healed.

Today, the media is full of things that are not pleasing to God, yet Christians still figure they are 'free' to take part of it. Books and movies like 'The Hunger Games' or 'The Twilight Saga' are full of things that are unpleasing to Father and fill our mind with not only worldly thoughts but demonic thoughts as well. Through mediums such as these, we open doors and cracks for Satan to come in and then we wonder why we are sick and ill or we are not being healed from ailments that afflict us.

I am convinced that if we would follow the instruction laid out by James then we would see a lot more healing take place.

James 5:15-20 NIV

And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a human being, even as we are. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.

My brothers and sisters, if one of you should wander from the truth and someone should bring that person back, remember this: Whoever turns a sinner from the error of their way will save them from death and cover over a multitude of sins.

Healing does happen today. I am proof of it and I have witnessed it. My husband who is a physician sees his prayers answered on a daily basis. He has seen dead men and babies come to life again because of God answering prayer.

Blessings,

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