The Light Shines in the Darkness
John 1:5 (NIV) The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
What is darknesss? It is the absence of light. The darkness has no power over the light. Wherever the light shines, the darkness cannot stop it, it can only retreat from the light. Jesus is the light of the world (John 8:5), who shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5). All darkness must flee from his presence. He came to shine God’s light into the darkness of our world, into the darkness of our lives. Where his light shines into the darkness, it flees and reveals what was in the dark, which is part of our problem, we don’t like what the light reveals. It reveals our sin, the ugly stuff in our life, our hurts and pain, things that we have tried to keep hidden in the dark because we think it is safer tucked away there, but in the darkness if festers and grows. Jesus shines his light in those places because he wants us to find freedom from it, forgiveness, and healing, but first we have to admit and repent of (turn from) it and trust (believe) that Jesus will forgive us and bring healing so that the light of life will fill us and we will experience freedom. When we trust in and follow Jesus, we become children of light (Eph. 5:8), we are filled with the light, and we are able to walk in the light as he is in the light (1 John 1:7), and so the darkness must flee because the enemy has nothing left to hold over us, to accuse us of, that which was festering in the dark is now gone and we are filled with his light.