Now you are light...

With all the load shedding of the past weeks, we numerous times had to use candles or a gas lamp in our house, and I marveled once again over the fact that no amount of darkness can quench even only one candle's light. The darkness just has to flee the moment you light the candle. It made me think about light in the the Bible:  

Genesis 1:1-3

 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. ² The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. ⁴ And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. ⁵ God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

 1 Peter 2:9

⁹ But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; ¹⁰ who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy.

Ephesians 5:8-10

 ⁸ For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light ⁹ (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), ¹⁰ finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. 

On the very first day of creation, when God created light, He separated the Light from the darkness.  The Kingdom of God is represented as light and the kingdom of the enemy as darkness.  The word 'night' in that verse in Hebrew carries the figurative meaning of anything that is a 'twist away from the Day' and this was to be called Night.  Thus God is saying anything that, even just remotely, is a twist away from Light, will not be part of His Kingdom.  When man sinned they sadly made themselves part of the kingdom of darkness.

When we read 1 Peter 2 and Ephesians 5 together we see that God, in His great and unfathomable love and wisdom for us, not only called us out of darkness in the sense of a dark place (the kingdom of darkness), and into His marvelous light, but in addition He says He called us who were once darkness out of the darkness that we were - to be light in the Lord. 

In other words, He did not just call us out of a place of darkness, but He called us out of an existence where our identity was darkness into an existence where our identity is light in the Lord.  

 Mathew 5:14-16 elaborates on this when God says:

¹⁴ “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. ¹⁵ Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. ¹⁶ Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

We cannot hide our light-identity, it is meant to give light and glorify and proclaim the praises of our Father in heaven.  

In John 1:1-5 we read: 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was in the beginning with God. ³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. ⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. ⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

In Genesis 1 God speaks the Words, "Light be" and there was light and life came because of the light. That Word and Light was Jesus - In Him is life - and this life is our light and this light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot quench it - but moreover it does not comprehend it.  Imagine that!  The whole of the kingdom of darkness do not comprehend the light that is in us... nor the fact that when we have Christ in our hearts, then we are light, then light is our identity!  Marvelous light indeed!

So let us therefore praise our God and bring Him honour for His Light in us!

 Let there be Light - City Harmonic