Live In The Light

We need to be concerned about who we are making happy.

Ephesians 5:6-14  Don't be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey Him.  7  Don't participate in the things these people do.

8  For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!  9  For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true.  10  Carefully determine what pleases the Lord.

11  Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them.  12  It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret.  13  But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them,  14  for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, "Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light."

John 8:12  Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, "I am the light of the world. If you follow Me, you won't have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life."

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There are a lot more people in this world that are living to please themselves than there are that try to live to please God. It can be easy to be fooled into thinking that it really doesn't matter very much how I live but the entire Bible tells me that isn't correct. From cover to cover the message of the Bible to God's people is that he wants them to be different.

Ever since man was created, God has desired to have fellowship with us, but we cannot allow ourselves to be involved in the sins that the world gets wrapped up in and think that we will be able to maintain a close personal relationship with God.

Deuteronomy 10:12-13  "And now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require of you? He requires only that you fear the LORD your God, and live in a way that pleases Him, and love Him and serve Him with all your heart and soul.  13  And you must always obey the LORD's commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own good.

Before we began following Jesus we were in the dark, intellectually we were ignorant and morally we were evil, we could not help but do what pleases ourselves. The devil has plenty of delightful tricks to get us to stay in the dark, that's where he wants to keep us, it is so much "fun" that we won't even realize that we are in the dark.

Living in light means living in truth and living in holiness, living to find out what pleases God, the light exposes the devils tricks and the lies that he tells you about how good life is in the dark. God's way is best, he has our best interest at heart, he wants to give us life more abundantly and he wants to change our eternal destination.

Before we became God's children we were living in a dark cave without any source of light. We couldn't know which way to go, we couldn't see to take care of ourselves, we were hopeless to do anything without the light.Then we get rescued from that hopeless environment and the next thing you know we go running back into the cave. It is amazing that we think that there is something better for us back in the dark.

Turn away from evil.

Titus 2:12-14  And we are instructed to turn from godless living and sinful pleasures. We should live in this evil world with wisdom, righteousness, and devotion to God,  13  while we look forward with hope to that wonderful day when the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, will be revealed.  14  He gave His life to free us from every kind of sin, to cleanse us, and to make us His very own people, totally committed to doing good deeds.

Light and dark don't mix and so the the characteristics, if you're going to walk as a child of light, goodness, righteousness, truth cannot mix with the evil, unrighteous lies of the children of the dark. We are told not to do the things that they do and we are to shine our light so that it exposes the shameful things that they are doing.

I must be determined to shine my light in this dark world. It is a crime for a lighthouse to be out of service when the storms of life are raging and people desperately need the hope of Jesus.