“Bioluminescent,” Amelia repeated. We were reading a Bible devotion book from her daddy’s childhood and I was afraid it still might be a little much for her two years, but I needn’t have worried. She picked the most difficult word to repeat, so I reminded her what we’d just read. God created fish that live very deep in the ocean and fireflies living on land with the ability to make their own light. They are bioluminescent. Each is a beautiful example of God’s creativity, and also a reminder that we can be the light in our dark world as well by trusting in Jesus, the true and everlasting Light.
“Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.”
Psalms 119:105 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.119.105.NLT
“Your word is like a lamp that shows me the way.
It is like a light that guides me.”
Psalm 119:105 NIRV
https://bible.com/bible/110/psa.119.105.NIRV
“Truth’s shining light guides me in my choices and decisions; the revelation of your Word makes my pathway clear.”
Psalms 119:105 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.119.105.TPT
John refers to Jesus as the Word who put on flesh to live among us. A dear friend and mentor, Tony Shaw, used the phrase “earth suit” when teaching my children about our earthly bodies made up of flesh and blood. When God formed Adam, the first man from the dust of the earth and breathed His life into man, God fashioned human bodies to survive in earth’s environment, which He custom made for us. Jesus took on flesh and lived among His creation to make a way for us to be reconciled to God.
After Jesus’s resurrection, His followers often didn’t recognize Him right away. He ate food in their presence and showed them His scars, proving His identity. God, in Christ, was giving us a sneak peek of our heavenly bodies, but Jesus told his disciples that it was better for Him to go away, to return to His Father in heaven, because God would send a Helper, the Holy Spirit, who would teach and remind them of everything He had spoken. Jesus is the living Word of God, quickened by the Spirit of God in the hearts and minds of all who believe, surrendering to His Lordship.
“You’re only truly happy when you walk in total integrity, walking in the light of God’s Word.
What joy overwhelms everyone who keeps the ways of God, those who seek him as their heart’s passion!”
Psalms 119:1-2 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.119.1-2.TPT
““Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long.
Your commands make me wiser than my enemies, for they are ever with me.
I have more insight than all my teachers, for I meditate on your statutes.
I have more understanding than the elders, for I obey your precepts” (Ps. 119:97-100).
The psalmist is not saying that he has a higher IQ than that of his teachers, or that he is intrinsically smarter than his enemies or brighter than all the elders.
Rather, he is claiming that constant meditation on God’s instruction (his “law”) and a deep-seated commitment to obey God’s precepts provide him with a framework and a depth of insight that are unavailable to merely brilliant scholars and well-trained political leaders.”
Read the Bible: Deut. 32, Psalm 119:121-144, Isaiah 59, and Matthew 7
“Break open your Word within me until revelation-light shines out!
Those with open hearts are given insight into your plans.
I open my mouth and inhale the Word of God because I crave the revelation of your commands.”
Psalms 119:130-131 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.119.130-131.TPT
“How sweet are your living promises to me; sweeter than honey is your revelation-light.
For your truth is the source of my understanding, not the falsehoods of those who don’t know you, which I despise.”
Psalms 119:103-104 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/psa.119.103-104.TPT
“My eyes long for your salvation and for the fulfillment of your righteous promise.”
Psalm 119:123 ESV
https://bible.com/bible/59/psa.119.123.ESV
“My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled.”
Psalms 119:123 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.119.123.NLT
“Then Jesus, overflowing with the Holy Spirit’s joy, exclaimed, “Father, thank you, for you are Lord Supreme over heaven and earth!
You have hidden the great revelation of this authority from those who are proud, those wise in their own eyes, and you have shared it with these who humbled themselves.
Yes, Father. This is what pleases your heart: to give these things to those who are like trusting children.
Father, you have entrusted me with all that you have. No one fully knows the Son except the Father. And no one fully knows the Father except the Son. But the Son is able to reveal the Father to anyone he chooses.
When Jesus was alone with the Twelve, he said to them, “You are privileged to see and hear all these things.
Many kings and prophets of old longed to see these days of miracles that you’ve been favored to see.
They would have given everything to hear the revelation you’ve been favored to hear. Yet they didn’t get to see a glimpse or hear even a whisper.””
Luke 10:21-24 TPT
https://bible.com/bible/1849/luk.10.24.TPT
“For God had something better in mind for us, so that they would not reach perfection without us.”
Hebrews 11:40 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/heb.11.40.NLT
“For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”
Romans 8:29 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/rom.8.29.NLT
Jesus paved the way for us from death to abundant and everlasting life with God. He welcomes us as children. We bring nothing but our needs when we come to Him, and our greatest need is met in Him.
“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.
Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him.
Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out.
Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it.
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.
Living then, as every one of you does, in pure grace, it’s important that you not misinterpret yourselves as people who are bringing this goodness to God.
No, God brings it all to you.
The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what he does for us, not by what we are and what we do for him.”
Romans 12:1-3 MSG
https://bible.com/bible/97/rom.12.1-3.MSG
“Brothers and sisters, consider who you were when God called you to salvation.
Not many of you were wise scholars by human standards, nor were many of you in positions of power.
Not many of you were considered the elite when you answered God’s call.
But God chose those whom the world considers foolish to shame those who think they are wise, and God chose the puny and powerless to shame the high and mighty.
He chose the lowly, the laughable in the world’s eyes—nobodies—so that he would shame the somebodies.
For he chose what is regarded as insignificant in order to supersede what is regarded as prominent, so that there would be no place for prideful boasting in God’s presence.
For it is not from man that we draw our life but from God as we are being joined to Jesus, the Anointed One.
And now he is our God-given wisdom, our virtue, our holiness, and our redemption.
And this fulfills what is written: If anyone boasts, let him only boast in all that the Lord has done!”
1 Corinthians 1:26-31 TPT
A Fitting Reply 