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Word from Scotland
by Sandy Shaw
We are reading and considering these opening sentences in the Gospel of John. It has been said, “These words are like the spreading of honey on the tongue of a believer, yet to the unbeliever they remain a puzzle; to the unbeliever they remain meaningless.”
If these verses are meaningless and if they are somewhat of a puzzle, it may mean that you still need to know Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord and be born again. This is the writing of a fisherman, he is now a fisherman who has walked with Jesus Christ for some 60 years and he has been born again and he has served in the front line of the Kingdom of God over this entire period. He is a fisherman with profound spiritual experience.
John writes in verse 4 that in Jesus Christ there was life. Jesus gave life to John and Jesus gives life today.
Life – real life – is to be found in Jesus Christ and received from Jesus Christ.
“LIFE” is a key word in this book and this includes spiritual life and physical life.
“I am the resurrection and the life. I am the way the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father except through me.”
When we receive the life of the Spirit of Jesus, that life becomes light.
We begin to see things clearly and we begin to shine and show up sin. Light conquers darkness.
The world is darkness. It is not just in darkness, but it is darkness. There are many people walking around today in mental and moral and spiritual darkness.
Mental darkness is when people cannot distinguish between what is real and unreal. They haven’t discovered the real God and they are bewildered. They prefer horoscopes and all kinds of other thought processes, to the Word of God.
Moral darkness – they cannot do what is right because they do not know what is right. Ask those who believe in evolution if we are evolving morally? Are we morally better than previous generations? They can become strangely silent.
It is into this darkness that Jesus Christ came and shone. Jesus Christ tells men what is real and what is right, as they see the light. And, all the mental and moral and spiritual confusion and darkness cannot put out the light of Christ. It is the light of Christ that shows up all the wrong. He goes on shining to conquer the darkness, and where He is received and accepted He takes away the darkness, whatever that darkness might be.
The greatest prophet this world has every seen, before or after Jesus Christ, was John the Baptist, and even he can only point to the light, but when the light of Jesus shines, not everyone wants Him to shine, because He shows us all the things we would perhaps prefer to keep hidden.
He comes with light and life, but frequently He is rejected.
He came to His own. They refused and rejected Him, and some continue to refuse and reject Him.
To those who receive Him – to them he gives power – to become sons of God – to those who believe on His Name.
All this has to become flesh. All this has to become real. All this has to become very personal.
When we are open to Jesus, and His Word, and His Love, and His Light, and the Power and Presence of the Holy Spirit, then we can begin to see something of the meaning and purpose, of what went wrong, and how Jesus Christ came to put it right.
Then we become part of the answer and no longer part of the problem.
Alexander 'Sandy' Shaw is pastor of Nairn Christian Fellowship in Nairn, Scotland. Nairn is 17 miles east of Inverness - on the Moray Firth Coast - not far from the Loch Ness Monster!
Gifted as a Biblical teacher, Sandy is firmly committed to making sure that his teachings are firmly grounded in the Word.
Sandy has a weekly radio talk which can be heard via the Internet on Saturday at 11:40am, New Orleans time, at wsho.com.
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