God is light | Northstar Church

“This is the life-giving message we heard him share and it’s still ringing in our ears. We now repeat his words to you: God is pure light. You will never find even a trace of darkness in him.” – 1 John 1:5 (TPT).

C.S. Lewis wrote about an experience in a toolshed in his book of essays entitled God in the Dock: “I was standing today in the dark toolshed. The sun was shining outside and through the crack at the top of the door there came a sunbeam. From where I stood that beam of light, with the specks of dust floating in it, was the most striking thing in the place. Everything else was almost pitch-black. I was seeing the beam, not seeing things by it. Then I moved, so that the beam fell on my eyes. Instantly the whole previous picture vanished. I saw no toolshed, and (above all) no beam. Instead, I saw, framed in the irregular cranny at the top of the door, green leaves moving on the branches of a tree outside and beyond that, 90 odd million miles away, the sun. Looking along the beam, and looking at the beam are very different experiences.”

Such is the power of light. The first picture of God that John wants to put before us is this picture of God as light. “God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all (NLT).” It means that if you draw near to God, you do not find the dark, you find freedom and hope and joy. In God, the legos on the floor, the bedposts, the low hanging branches, the potholes, the spider webs are all illuminated and we are safe from them. That is, there are no lurking shadows in God. There is no hidden agenda, no small print. He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all.

Coming to God is not like buying a used car. You see an ad for a used car and it sounds like an awesome deal. It may seem like a light has been shown on your transportation needs. But when you go check it out you find darkness instead of life; there are a lot of problems that did not show up on the advertisement and in the light of this information, the car is not the good value you thought it was. God is not like that. He is light and in Him is no darkness at all. There is no small print qualifying the brightness of His glory. No false advertising or missing parts of malfunctioning engines.

God is all light and light shows me what still needs cleaning up in my life, big or small. Without the light I am in darkness and can’t see the sin in my life, and how I need to be transformed. Light is judgment; and when we, step by step, enter into the light and are willing to step out of darkness, we are transformed into Jesus’ image.

When I love the light, I seek for it to shine into every area of my life, so that sin can be exposed. I become a child of the light. Where the light shines new growth comes. Love, joy, kindness, long-suffering, and all the fruits of the Spirit grow in the light. Ephesians 5:8 says, “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!“

Let’s all make it our daily goal to fix our thoughts on these things and live as people of the light.

Discussion Questions:

What is the power of light? Why is it so important? How does this attest to the importance of Jesus?
How has Jesus shone his light into your life?
What does walking in the light mean to you?