The Powers of this Dark World
The seeds of this particular blog were planted on the day I saw just a snippet of the video taken of the Jordanian pilot as he was burned alive inside a cage.
There are no words in our language to do justice to the horror of that image. Sometimes we become numb to these images of evil. Perhaps we must be numb in order to cope. On this day however, for me, I felt a physical wave of nausea come over me. Unspeakable evil, a heartless desire to see another human suffer. The ability to 'produce' that person's suffering for personal gain...how can this happen?
Today, a still photo of Coptic Christians from Egypt. 21 of them, standing in water just slightly less than knee deep. Behind them, 21 Islamic terrorists with machetes at the ready. The beheading shot mercifully unseen, but the shot that followed was perhaps even more horrifying. Nothing but the bloody waters remained. Nausea. A sense in my soul of the deadness of those who commit these acts.
A TV crime documentary recounts a Baptist missionary who shot his wife on Valentine's Day in 2013, as a gift to his young mistress.
Millions of people, men and women, flocking to see a movie about abuse and rape, and torture and exploitation. A celebration of love? No, a million times, no! I could go on...there are so many examples. My point is not to list every dark thing that comes with life on this earth.
What is the point? From whence comes light? On what goodness can our hearts depend? Only from the heart of God do we know pure love and pure light - the Gospel of John tells us, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."
Darkness is sometimes easier to understand...too easy, even for those who profess to know God and love Him. The light of God's pure love came to us in Christ Jesus, but the scripture tells us that the darkness doesn't understand the light. Darkness has never been able to comprehend light.
I feel compelled to speak to my fellow Christians today, reminding us that we do not belong to the darkness. Jesus rescued us from the domain of darkness, but in our freedom to choose, let us not choose to be enslaved again to empty and evil powers. If we who are the children of light continue to wink at darkness, to go along with the crowd because it's easy...how will those who are slaves to darkness have a chance to see the light?
We are a holy people, and we belong to God. He has rescued us through the precious blood of His Son Jesus. He has called us out of the darkness and into His marvelous light. Our freedom is not without a cost, and it is not without a calling. We are called to walk in the light, just as He walked in the light and was an example to us.
"This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth." I John 1:5-6
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