Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God
So true. I never really realized it before, but the reason (before I believed) that I hated people that had Christ in them was because they made me see that I was a sinner.
As Christians we're supposed to live up to verse 21
But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God
Since we're all sinners when we come into the light all our darkness is going to be exposed. Hence why sanctification hurts like ......hell. Its like being blind your whole life and suddenly being able to SEE. Your going to want to close your eyes cuz everything is SO BRIGHT, but if you keep your eyes open then eventually your eyes will adjust and you will find something so much better.
I think a lot of the times we tend to "close our eyes." We feel ashamed of what we've done in the past so we don't completely share it with others, but to really come into the light we need to be able to share and testify to all the darkness that was in our life before so that others can SEE PLAINLY how God has changed us and give praise to HIS name!
In the church today we definitely don't do that. We tend to do the exact opposite. We hide the darkness in our hearts as Christians and put masks on to save our face (its in our sinful nature). When the bible clearly tells us:
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.
-James 5:16
We want to be victorious over sin?
Then we got to bring it into the light and pray over it.
We need to die to ourselves daily and submit ourselves completely to Christ
No pride only JESUS. Of course this is WAY easier said than done.
Lets be serious I'm definitely like 3940349 away from there.
So we got struggling Christians in the church living in serious sin cuz they're fighting alone with no one to watch their back.
We got unbelievers coming into the church and being completely turned off because they don't think they're good enough or think everyone is fake and a hypocrite.
If we could only be humble, open and real how much more would the church GROW!
How much more would we be blessed by God's favour!
We are broken people reaching out to broken people
We tend to forget that very easily and then ministry becomes a
"I'm the superhero going to save the sinners"
Instead of:
"Hey I struggled with the exact same thing you do and this guy named Jesus saved me"
Lets pray humility and lots of it every single day of our lives!
