Living in the Light

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF JOHN

LIVING IN THE LIGHT

John 3:21

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."   

NIV

This is the last statement Jesus made to Nicodemus about being born again and the resulting life of either accepting or rejecting the experience. Here we learn that if we do accept Jesus, believe on his name, become born again, we will live by the truth and come into the light. We will leave the darkness of our own minds which we were once in and walk freely into his light, living openly before God and men. It would appear that what we have done should be plainly seen as being done through God. This would imply that we should never take a bow, never accept applause for what we do, never accept a compliment for our achievements, performances or even for our ministries. If we are living in the truth, in the light than all we are and all we do is solely because of God.  We should not take any credit for anything we do. It is questionable if we should be celebrating certain achievements should as a graduation, or promotion, marriage, having a child, even a birthday, as all of those are centered around the person, unless of course we are careful to tell all of it those events are because of the blessings of God in our lives. We need to be diligent to always give God the glory, the credit for anything that we do because we live in the truth, in the light of Jesus. Our lives should be an open book before God and before men as we have nothing to hide, as those do who still live in the darkness. This might also imply that we should confess our sins one to another so that we might by healed, but that would mean we need to admit we have sin and that would be living in the truth. Not only should we not take credit for all the good deeds, but that we should not hide the bad deeds, if we are living in the light. We cannot live behind a façade of false spirituality, but we should truly live by the truth because we have come into the light.