DARKNESS OR LIGHT?

"When you turn away from Me, you are vulnerable to the darkness that is always at work in the world. Don't be surprised by how easily you fall into sin when you forget to cling to My hand. " June 24 entry in JESUS CALLING by Sarah Young.



It's scary, isn't it, how easily we are pulled away from the Light to the darkness.
The pull of the world is strong, never ceasing, energized by the enemy of our souls. We can be walking with the Lord one minute and the very next be in sin up to our eyebrows!

The sin nature is ever with us. Have you ever noticed that you do not have to teach a baby to sin? Their sin nature will cause them to assert themselves and shout "NO!" or "MINE"!! You have to teach them how to share, how to obey, how to respect....the opposite they will do without prompting. Before one comes to Christ, before he is a "Believer", he cannot NOT sin. It is his very nature.

But, as Believers, we have a "switch", if you will, that allows us to choose WHO we will yield our will to....to the sin nature or to the Holy Spirit. We no longer HAVE to sin. Moment by moment we must choose. If we will keep our eyes focused on the Lord and His ways....the LIGHT....we will choose to yield to Him. But if we take our eyes off the LIGHT and yield to the pull of the world, we will walk toward the darkness. Every step toward the darkness, takes us one step farther from the LIGHT...the Lord. That is why we must be careful and conscious of the choices and decisions we make throughout the day. One thing that makes it easier to yield to the Lord rather than to the sin nature is to have your heart and mind filled with the Word of God. You see, God's Word is like no other written material. It is God-breathed and it is alive. It is God Himself speaking to us. Listen to how John describes it in John 1: 1

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word WAS God"!!


When you read the Word of God, you are not reading from the pages of some ancient manuscript. You are ingesting the very WORDS of God Himself. You are literally taking God into yourself. It is like no other book you will ever read. It has the power to change your life!

Isaiah tells us "So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I send it." Isaiah 55:11. Did you get that? God's Word will not return void. If you take the time to study it, to learn it, to memorize it, God will see to it that it profits you. It may be years since you have read a particular verse, but just when you need it, it will come to your mind.

That scene has been replayed thousands of times in the lives of Believers but never more vividly than in the lives of prisoners of war. So many of their testimonies were of being in church as a child, learning memory verses and singing songs about Jesus. But as an adult they had drifted away from Him. However, in the loneliness of a prison cell, shut out from the world and from all human contact except for their torturers, they would begin to pray and as they prayed verses of scripture would come to their mind. Sometimes only in fragments, but it would come. One told of how he communicated by Morse code with a fellow prisoner in the next cell. He would tap out his portion of the verse and miraculously, the other prisoner would know the remaining portion and together they began to piece together large sections of the Word!! And that is what got them through those horrendous circumstances. God's Word did not return void.

Like a computer, however, you only get out what you put in. So if you are not reading the Word on a regular basis, why not start today? Psalms is a good place to begin. You knew I'd say that didn't you? Yes, it is my personal favorite, but it's also easy to read, easy to understand and easy to remember. John is also a good one. The important thing is to start somewhere. Even if you only read 1 chapter a day, that is a good beginning. Read it, meditate on what it means to YOUR life today, pray over it asking God to reveal to you all that He wants you to know. Try to memorize a passage or two. Then ask God to help you live it out. As you do, you will find that you are living more in the LIGHT and less in the dark.