Ephesians 5:8-20 "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. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of
darkness, but rather expose
them. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated
becomes a light. This is why
it is said: “Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Be very careful, then,
how you live—not as unwise but as wise,
making the most of every
opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the
Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine,
which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from
the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart
to the Lord, always giving
thanks to God the Father for everything, in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ."
If we're in a dark room with no obstacles (lamps,
tables, etc) and we switch on the light, we can see everything around us,
right? There's nothing in the way - all is light, there is no darkness
anywhere in the room. Which is good, because we've never been in this room
before.
Now let's say we throw in a table, some chairs, a
couch, some candles and maybe bookshelf or two for those of us who still
actually read 'books' ;) We switch on the light and nothing happens. For some
reason or another the electricity is off in that room. We could think about
going downstairs and checking the breaker, but we just wanted to have a little
resting time, so we decide to grab a flashlight and light some candles. The
candles don't put off a whole lot of light but enough to not bump into anything
that would turn into a bruise the next day (most of us would then wonder the
next morning how in the heck we got that bruise). If we carry the candle
around, we take the light wherever we go. We expose the light only those place
that we want to go. Everything else stays in darkness.
Now let's say the electricity comes back on and,
oops - we left the light switch in the 'ON' position. After being in the dimly
lit room resting, it takes a little bit of time for our eyes to adjust to the
radiance around us. We no longer have control over where the light goes....
unless we go over and turn the switch off and just use the candles again. We go
lay down on the couch and go back to resting and the light pops back on. Not to
worry, there are no ghosts. Someone cracked the door open and switched the
light back on. This happens a couple times and we are getting annoyed. The
next time the light pops on, we think we see something over there underneath the
table, but we're not quite sure. There's a shadow there from the other pieces
of furniture in the room. So we take the candle and go over to see if we really
saw something there or not. Yep, there's something there. As soon as the light
hits it, a mouse runs under the crack of the door and out of the room. Well, at
least we weren't hallucinating! But we do start to cautiously look into all the
other shadow places, just to make sure there's no more mice around... so much
for resting.
The dark room with no obstacles and the light
coming on represents our lives when we are born. There are no obstacles in the
way - light is everywhere because God and Jesus through Holy Spirit is
everywhere patiently watching over us. As we grow and move more stuff into the
room, we realize at some point, it's a bit cluttered. The 'stuff' being sin,
our wants, our desires, things we've done to harm others, things others have
done to harm us. The list could go on and on. The light goes off in that room
- Holy Spirit sees He's not welcome there anymore. Other things have taken His
place. We close the door, because we don't want anyone else to see what in that
room. Yet, every once in a while, we walk in there just to have a look around
and maybe pick up one or two things... look at them and put them back. We can
see just barely whats in that room, we do have a little flickering light
(conscience, no - Holy Spirit) with us. We may even clean out a couple small
things here and there. Then we leave and shut the door again.
This goes on for quite some time... even years in
most cases. Now everything is covered in dust and cobwebs, might even have some
spiders...I mean, spirits, living in there. We start to feel like something is
terribly wrong with our relationship with God, with others, or even with
ourselves. We are waking up from a very long sleep. So, we ask the Lord to
show us what it could be. He points to the room. 'Oh... you mean that old,
stanky place? Why would I ever want to go in there now? Do you know how filthy
everything in there must be?' He just stands there looking at us with one
eyebrow raised and His finger is still pointing to the door. In all actuality,
we are dreading and trembling at the thought of going in there. Jesus walks
up to us, puts His arm around us and says we'll do it together. We open the
door, because Jesus said that's our part, we have to open the door to our heart
to let Him in. There's instant Light as Holy Spirit comes back into the
room. The spiders (spirits/demons) vacate the premises (some Jesus says we
actually have to tell them they have to go, then Jesus kicks them out). We
start the long, difficult process of cleaning up the room. All the old stuff
has to go, is what Jesus says. You know, all those desires, wants, sins, hurts,
wounds, etc.? Yeah, those. Some of it really hurts to let go of, it surprises
even us, but Jesus is there comforting us and replacing what we're throwing out
with the good things of the Spirit. The room is looking brighter and shinier.
Just when we we're done, Jesus sees the shadows and we start to clean out the
shadow places - those places long forgotten or that happened a long, long time
ago that we may or may not have forgotten. These are the hardest to reach, but
Jesus put His hand on ours and helps us clear away the clutter even in the
shadows. Eventually His Light is everywhere. There's so much joy. The room
is clean!!! We all rejoice and rest in the Light.
One day, as we're sitting there.... we
wonder..... how many other rooms are there? The Lord just smiles and says, 'In
due time, My Child; in due time.'
I know this was rather long, but I said all that
to say, Jesus doesn't want us to carry darkness around with us. It's heavy, it
weighs us down, it hinders us from fulfilling our destiny, our original design -
how He created us. He wants us to walk around and not only carry His Light for
ourselves, but for others to see that Light within us and be drawn to Him.
He always takes us from glory to
glory.
Holy Spirit - Jesus Culture
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