Being available to help my daughter after the birth of her third son meant traveling back and forth between her home and mine. Even though I am thoroughly familiar with both locations, I have awakened in the night disoriented in both. To my right at home is my nightstand and my husband’s easy chair. Jake, the Great Dane in his oversized orthopedic bed takes up the lower quarter of two panes of a window with a beautiful moonlit view of the lake. My husband sleeps on my left. At my daughter’s house, the glider rocker where she nurses the baby sits next to the crib on my left and my mattress abuts the bifold closet door on my right. One false move and I collide with the closet door and startle the baby awake. I’ve learned to resist the urge to roll over while holding my extra pillow. Fortunately the bathroom is past the foot of the bed in the same direction in both houses. Still there have been nights that I misjudged my step and wound up with a bruised shin.
Nights when our kids were small and the electricity went out unexpectedly taught us to keep extra batteries on hand and a lantern next to our bed for emergencies. Complete darkness where you cannot see your own hand in front of your face is always disorienting. The same is true for spiritual darkness. Our eyes only see clearly when we walk in the Light.
“This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.
So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth.
But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:5-7 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/1jn.1.5-7.NLT
“What sorrow for those who say that evil is good and good is evil, that dark is light and light is dark, that bitter is sweet and sweet is bitter.
What sorrow for those who are wise in their own eyes and think themselves so clever.”
Isaiah 5:20-21 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/isa.5.20-21.NLT
Not everyone who claims to be walking according to the Light and who appears to be representing Jesus is to be trusted. Jesus said, “Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.”
Matthew 7:15-16, 20 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.7.15-16.NLT
The voices we choose to listen to regularly matter more than you may think. God’s message to the prophet Isaiah was not for a pagan nation but for God’s own possession, for Israel and Judah. God’s chosen people had convinced themselves that God would not allow them to be destroyed because He had chosen Jerusalem for His earthly dwelling. God gave Isaiah a specific message for Jerusalem. Jesus, quoting Isaiah’s message, said to the Pharisees and teachers of the Law, “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”
Matthew 15:8 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/mat.15.8.NLT
The people in Israel and Judah were without remorse. They went through the motions of offering their sacrifices at the appointed times while continuing to act in ways that angered God. Judgement in the form of exile came because they had convinced themselves of a lie and they continued to listen to all the wrong voices.
“This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says to his people: “Do not listen to these prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes.
They are making up everything they say.
They do not speak for the LORD!
They keep saying to those who despise my word, ‘Don’t worry! The LORD says you will have peace!’
And to those who stubbornly follow their own desires, they say, ‘No harm will come your way!’
I have not sent these prophets, yet they run around claiming to speak for me.
I have given them no message, yet they go on prophesying.
If they had stood before me and listened to me, they would have spoken my words, and they would have turned my people from their evil ways and deeds.
I have heard these prophets say, ‘Listen to the dream I had from God last night.’
And then they proceed to tell lies in my name.
How long will this go on?
If they are prophets, they are prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say.
But stop using this phrase, ‘prophecy from the LORD.’
For people are using it to give authority to their own ideas, turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the LORD of Heaven’s Armies.”
Jeremiah 23:16-17, 21-22, 25-26, 36 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/jer.23.16-17.NLT
“Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative.
No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.”
2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/2pe.1.20-21.NLT
“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it.
Pursue the things over which Christ presides.
Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you.
Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is.
See things from his perspective.
Your old life is dead.
Your new life, which is your real life—even though invisible to spectators—is with Christ in God.
He is your life.
When Christ (your real life, remember) shows up again on this earth, you’ll show up, too—the real you, the glorious you.”
Colossians 3:1-4 MSG
https://www.bible.com/97/col.3.1-4.msg
My eldest grandson’s favorite game at five is hide and seek. He darts quickly into the next room and ducks behind a random object or piece of furniture and waits to be discovered. To his disadvantage in their small home, his hiding spots are fairly limited and therefore predictable. It takes great effort to pretend not to spot him right away. I imagine God looking down in His omniscience on us trying without success to hide from Him. The Psalmist may have imagined something similar.
“I could ask the darkness to hide me and the light around me to become night— but even in darkness I cannot hide from you.
To you the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to you.”
Psalms 139:11-12 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.139.11-12.NLT
Instead, with David, the man after God’s own heart, we could pray,
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.”
Psalms 139:23-24 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/psa.139.23-24.NLT
“We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven.
You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world.
It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you.
We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit.
All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need.
May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father.
He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light.
For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, who purchased our freedom and forgave our sins.”
Colossians 1:3-6, 9-14 NLT
https://bible.com/bible/116/col.1.3-6.NLT
“And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”
Philippians 1:6 ESV
https://www.bible.com/59/php.1.6.esv
In The Light ~DCTalk https://youtu.be/8VLAbNNuFtQ?is=iAeBm6J_Sd8RciMM
