JOHN 8:12.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

TO PONDER

Back a few decades ago I was noticing that there were times when I was having trouble seeing close things clearly, but I was too vain to consider getting my eyes tested. I was getting by OK. Then one evening I was driving alone to a location I was not familiar with. This was before satellite navigation was available and we used to navigate while driving with a book called a street directory held open on the steering wheel (or by a passenger if there was one in the car). On this occasion I got lost and was trying to work out where I was. This involved getting out of the car and reading street signs (when you could find them) and then using the index to find the page in the directory that had a street by that name. Well, this night, I just could not read the street directory with the light available in the car. So I had to get out of the car again and hold the directory in the headlights of the car to be able to read it. I eventually found my way to where I wanted to go. And next day I made an appointment with an optometrist.

You could say that I had all the information I needed in the street directory, but without the correct illumination I just couldn’t get access to this information. And without access to the information, I didn’t have the guidance I needed to go forward on my journey.

In our passage, Jesus is saying that He is both the illumination and the information we need to live lives as God intended us to live. In Jesus’s day, part of the information was already available in the Old Testament, but Jesus provided illumination in how to understand the information. The religious leaders of the day had got a lot of their understanding wrong and so kept challenging Jesus.

But Jesus had a whole lot more teaching to provide and this is captured for us in the New Testament. Thank God for giving us His Holy Spirit to help us see the things God wants us to see.

Just one thought. A bright light does nothing for us if there is nothing for it to illuminate. If we don’t open our bibles or spend time in conversation with God or spend time with other Christians, God may be limited in how He can enlighten us to his plans and purpose for us. But thankfully, He never gives up on us.

PRAYER: Patient Heavenly Father, thank You for all the ways You guide us in living the lives You planned for us. Thank You for Your word in the bible and for the illumination Your Holy Spirit provides to us to understand what has been written. Thank You that Your Spirit then guides us in living as Your dearly loved children. Amen

Today's devotion written by Charles Bertelsmeier, LifeWay Epping