1. Reveals Who God Is - "begin with Jesus and we begin with God's idea about God, we begin with God's idea about God's own self revelation. God is just like Jesus. ...Stay close to Jesus the Light of the world and we do not walk in darkness about God!" (72) This idea is totally new to me, something I never thought of this way, and I love it. Who is God? Jesus. It reminds me of the typical Sunday school questions where the answer is always Jesus...but it's true!
2. Reveals What It Means to Be Human - "He also turns out to be the perfect revelation of who we are, of who we were created to be." "Jesus is what it means to be human. Believing and loving." (73) Believing and love. I'm reminded of something I hear at Sonshine often: simple, but not always easy. I also loved where DJ talked about how/why we run to Jesus and away from Jesus. When I find myself running away from God, this quotes rings so true in my heart: "Yet we do not flee for long. For one, He is inescapable. But for another, we crave what we see in Him." It doesn't take long to realize the necessity of that Bread when I'm running the other direction. That craving for the Bread of Life overcomes the fear of letting God get closer and exposing the parts of my heart I try to hide.
3. Exposes the Truth about the Human Condition - Staying close to the light reveals to us that we are "in bondage to sin, held hostage by the power of evil, and living in the grip of death." (75) And we, ourselves, can't do anything about it. "We stand in need of Him." I'm continually amazed at how much these different chapters are intertwined into each other. But then I remember, they are all about the same person! Jesus, being the Light of the world, shows us once again how desperate we are for Him.
4. Illuminates God's Plans - "He opens up God's great plans for us and opens up the way to walk into those plans." (76) And what is that way? One step at a time, and always moving forward. I can think of countless times when I have had the mindset of the Israelites in the desert, wanting to run back to the "good old days" of the past (but only the good ones, not the bad ones!). I love what DJ had to say about that, "But God in His mercy would not let them go back. He had better plans for them and called them to follow Him into His yet-to-be-unfolded goodness." (77) Jeremiah 29:11 - He knows His plans...we have to stay close to the Light and wait for the next step to be illuminated in front of us.
5. Replaces Our Darkness with His Light - "if we dare to take the risks and follow Him into deeper intimacy with Him, we will experience more and more inner cleansing, inner healing. As Light (Fire), He moves into the secret places of our lives--into the 'shacks' of our hearts, into our thought life, into our emotional fantasies--to expose any and all darkness and burn it away." (78) Instantly, when I read this I was taken back to the weekend of our first barney appreciation last summer on the lake. We had a blazing bonfire going and were singing "Set a Fire," and it was honestly one of my favorite moments of the whole summer. Jesus, as Light/Fire, wants every part of our heart. He wants to light a fire inside us that we can't contain. He wants to burn away all that isn't of Him. He wants to replace all of the darkness, with His Light and His Life. And in order to do that, it's going to hurt, it's going to burn down to the deepest part of ourselves. But "we begin to experience more and more of what we might call 'inner radiance.'"
Katy- that video reminded me a worship in a houseboat out on the water.... Just less hippie
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing one of your favorite summer moments. I had a similar moment in Mexico. Almost got burned up when an ember lit my shirt on fire. Been 20+ years since that evening. The sense of Christ's sovereignty, compassion, wonder, and power that night still burns radiantly. Thanks for the memory trigger.
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