Jesus: All the Light We Need

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God 

Darkness. Sometimes we forget how dark darkness really is. I’ve never been in a place as dark as in the bowels of the Hoover Dam. Our family went to the Hoover Dam on a vacation when I was just a kid, and I still remember the piercing darkness as the guide took us down inside the dam to a small room and then shut off the lights. I know exactly what someone means when they say, “I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.” It’s interesting that now, some 55 years later as I am writing about it, I can almost feel that pressing darkness.

Thanks to Mr. Edison, very few people experience total darkness. However, there is a darkness that Edison’s invention cannot penetrate, the darkness of our sin. Often in Scripture, sin is likened to darkness and salvation is likened to light. I’d like you to ponder that for a moment. When a person lives in sin, he/she walks in darkness; stumbling, falling, and often, as I was in the darkness of Hoover Dam, fearful. 

Even sadder is the fact that out of that darkness only comes more darkness. The darkness of our sin produces the darkness of despair, bitterness, guilt, anger, fear, and more. So it doesn’t help to look within ourselves to be rid of spiritual darkness. From the darkness of our sin we only find more darkness.

The answer to spiritual darkness is Jesus, the “light of the world.” He conquered the darkness of sin through the cross and and the empty tomb. When you have Jesus, you have the light of salvation, really, all the light you need. 

Is it enough light to dispel the darkness of sin? I should think so! In the book of Revelation, John saw a heavenly city that didn’t have the light source of the sun, moon, or stars, and yet they had all the light they needed because Jesus lit the city with His presence. Jesus is all the light we need! 

The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. Revelation 21:23