Living In The Light

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord." Ephesians 5: 8-10

Our world is filled with amazing creations of the Lord. His creative brilliance is especially seen in the animal kingdom. I find the diversity and uniqueness pretty awesome. In fact, we stand amazed at all of the splendid species that we have discovered, yet there are many other undiscovered species living and thriving that we have yet to encounter. Many of these creatures are in spots that we cannot yet access - like the deep dark places of the earth and sea.

These species that live in the dark places of the world are pretty remarkable. God created them in such a way that they would be able to live in a place with little (hardly any really) light. Certain mammals will have huge eyes and retinas to allow as much light as possible in. Certain sea creatures of the deep will possess phosphorescent qualities to their bodies that give them a translucent glow. Other animals are given greater sensitivity to things like sound or touch to allow them to compensate for the lack of vision.

Now, despite the amazing ability to adapt that God has blessed His creatures with - a subterranean creature with retinas the size of softballs would have a very difficult time surviving and existing if suddenly thrust into the bright terrain of a Florida beach. Their first instincts are to do that which they know, and have always done. The bright light would be a huge shock to their whole system. Truth be told, they would likely die if such an environment change were to happen.

We are pretty amazing creatures too. God made us to live in the light of His holiness and righteousness - to do that which is good and true and holy. Yet, we struggle to live in the light, don't we? That's because the natural instincts God made us with got skewed and broken the moment sin entered the world. We were all born with a natural tendency to a life of darkness. We are creatures built and equipped for a habitat of light, yet trying to get by in a habitat of complete darkness. As you might imagine, if we don't change habitats, we will die - no amount of human adaptation can save us.

Thanks be to God, Jesus died to save us from the darkness. Through His death and resurrection we have been delivered into the light of life - our originally intentioned instincts towards righteousness restored. Through Christ we now walk in the light of the Lord, just as we were made to.

This restoration is our salvation - we are now fully able to be and do good, true, and holy things again. Oh, but we got used to our old destructive dark living, didn't we? Sometimes these habits are hard to break.

Yet through Christ, and the strength of His Spirit we can overcome these sinful temptations and choices. He has, He is, and He will deliver us into the goodness of His light.

Live as children of the light.

Be God's, Scott