Dawn 2 Dusk When the World Finally Looks DifferentThere is a Light that does more than decorate our streets or soften our moods; it exposes reality and remakes hearts. John calls Jesus the “true Light,” the One who actually illumines every person, not just outwardly, but deep in the conscience and soul. On a day like today—ordinary on the calendar, but sacred because Christ is near—this verse invites us to ask: What happens when that Light is not just around us, but welcomed within us? The Light That Finds Every Heart “The true Light who gives light to every man was coming into the world” (John 1:9). This is not a local, tribal, or seasonal Light. Christ’s coming is God’s open declaration that no human life is off His radar, no corner of the world or of the heart is unreachable. Whether people recognize Him or not, His Light presses in on every soul—through creation, conscience, and the quiet tug of the Spirit. As Paul says, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities…have been clearly seen” (Romans 1:20). The Light has a way of getting through. This means your story is not invisible. Maybe you feel overlooked, or maybe you’ve tried very hard to stay hidden—behind busyness, religious activity, or secret sin. But the true Light has already stepped into your world. “Once again, Jesus spoke to the people and said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in the darkness, but will have the light of life’” (John 8:12). His presence is not a distant star; it is a pursuing glory that refuses to leave you in the dark you’ve gotten used to. Exposed, but Also Invited Light exposes, and that can be terrifying. When Christ shines on us, He reveals not only our pain, but also our pride, our idols, our excuses. We would often rather stay dim than be seen. Yet this Light does not expose to mock or to crush, but to heal. “And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). In a world where every human relationship is shaded by some mixture of light and darkness, God alone is perfectly pure, and His exposing gaze is the safest place to stand. The call, then, is not to run, but to step into what we fear. “But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Notice the order: walk into the Light, and there you find both cleansing and real community. The very things we’re afraid the Light will take away—belonging, acceptance, hope—are the gifts He actually gives when we stop hiding. Today, what would it look like for you to let His Light touch something you’ve kept in the shadows? Carriers of the Dawn The miracle does not stop at being enlightened; in Christ, we become light-bearers. “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8). Notice the wording: not just “in the dark,” but “once darkness”—and now, “light in the Lord.” Through the gospel, God doesn’t just tweak your habits; He changes your very identity. The same God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” “has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The Light that came into the world now shines out of you. So wherever you go today—a workplace that feels hostile, a home that feels tired, a church that feels discouraged—you are not just enduring the atmosphere; you are meant to influence it. You carry Christ’s compassion into hard conversations, His purity into compromised spaces, His truth into confused minds. You may feel small, but dawn always looks small at first. Ask Him to make you willing to be noticed as different, not for your glory, but for His. The world is not just dark; it is being visited by the Light through the quiet, steady witness of those who belong to Him. Lord Jesus, thank You for being the true Light who came into my darkness. Today, help me step fully into Your Light and walk as a child of light, so that others may see Your glory and be drawn to You. Morning with A.W. Tozer Being and DoingEmerson complains in one of his essays that society tends to overlook our essential humanity and to think of us as being what we do. There should be no farmers, he argues, or carpenters, or painters; there should only be men who farm and paint and do carpenter work. This distinction is fine but vastly important, for the most vital thing about any man is not what he does or what he has but what he is. And first of all, a man must be a man--that is, a human being free in the earth, free to do anything his basic humanity requires him to do. And apart from sin (which is a moral abnormality, a disease in the heart of the man), whatever the man does is good and natural and pleasing to God. Man was made in the image of God; it is that image that gave him his high honor as a man and marked him out as something unique and apart. His occupation--farmer, carpenter, miner or office worker--is altogether incidental. Whatever he may do for his living, he is always a man, the special creature of God.
Except for the presence of sin in human nature, there could be no nobler sign than the one seen so often on city streets or in the middle of busy highways: "Men at Work." Whatever he may be doing, the significant thing is that he is a man. "You made him a little lower than the angels" (Romans 2:7). And nothing he does can change in any degree his essential humanity. His work can neither elevate nor degrade him; being made in God's image, he can elevate work by the very fact that he engages in it. A prince walks casually across the field, and his path becomes to the populace something different and wonderful. A thousand oxen had walked there before, but now the field is royal. The humble cow path did not degrade the prince; rather, he elevated it by his presence. That is as men see things, but it serves to illustrate a higher truth.
Music For the Soul Our Incomplete Possession of GodYe have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures. - James 4:2-3 We have an Infinite Spirit to dwell with us; how finite and little is our possession of it! The Spirit of God is set forth in Scripture under the symbol of "a rushing, mighty wind"; and you and I say that we are Christ’s, and that we have Him - how does it come, then, that our sails flap idly on the mast, and we lie becalmed, and making next to no progress? The Spirit of God is set forth in Scripture under the symbol of " flaming tongues of fire"; and you and I say that we have it - how is it, then, that this thick-ribbed ice is round our hearts, and our love is all so tepid? The Spirit of God is set forth in Scripture under the symbol of " rivers of water "; and you and I say that we possess it - how is it, then, that so much of our hearts and of our natures is given up to barrenness and dryness and deadness? The present possession of the best of us is but a partial and incomplete possession. And the same facts of wavering faith and cold affection, of imperfect consecration, which show how little we have of God, show likewise how little God has of us. We say that we are His, and live to please ourselves. We profess to belong to another, and to that other we render fragments - of ourselves, and scarcely even fragments of our time and of our efforts. His! and yet all day long never thinking of Him. His! and yet from morning till night never refraining from a thing because we know it is contrary to His will, or spurred to do a thing that is contrary to ours because we know it is His. His! and yet we wallow in selfishness. It is only a little corner of our souls that really belongs to God. I do not forget that this incompleteness of possession, looked at in both aspects, is to a certain extent inevitable, and must go with us all through life. And so do not let any of us rush precipitately to the conclusion that we are not Christians because we find what poor Christians we are. Do not let us say, " If there were any reality in my faith, it would be, not a dotted line, but one continuous and unbroken." Do not let us write bitter things against ourselves because we find that we have only got " the earnest of the inheritance," and that the inheritance has not yet come. And, on the other hand, do not you make a pillow of laziness of that most certain truth; nor because there must be imperfection always in the Christian career here, apply that as an excuse for the individual instances of imperfection as they crop up. You know, when you are honest with yourself, that each breach of continuity in your faith and obedience might have been prevented; you know that there was no reason that could not have been overcome for any failure of consecration or wavering of faith or act of disobedience and rebellion which has ever marked your course. Granted, imperfection is the law, but also remember that the individual instances of imperfection are to be debited not to law, but to us, and are not to be lamented over as inevitable, though painful, issues of our condition, but to be confessed as sins. "My fault, O Lord! my fault, and mine only." Spurgeon: Morning and Evening 1 Thessalonians 4:17 So shall we ever be with the Lord. Even the sweetest visits from Christ, how short they are--and how transitory! One moment our eyes see him, and we rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, but again a little time and we do not see him, for our beloved withdraws himself from us; like a roe or a young hart he leaps over the mountains of division; he is gone to the land of spices, and feeds no more among the lilies. "If today he deigns to bless us With a sense of pardoned sin, He to-morrow may distress us, Make us feel the plague within." Oh, how sweet the prospect of the time when we shall not behold him at a distance, but see him face to face: when he shall not be as a wayfaring man tarrying but for a night, but shall eternally enfold us in the bosom of his glory. We shall not see him for a little season, but "Millions of years our wondering eyes, Shall o'er our Saviour's beauties rove; And myriad ages we'll adore, The wonders of his love." In heaven there shall be no interruptions from care or sin; no weeping shall dim our eyes; no earthly business shall distract our happy thoughts; we shall have nothing to hinder us from gazing forever on the Sun of Righteousness with unwearied eyes. Oh, if it be so sweet to see him now and then, how sweet to gaze on that blessed face for aye, and never have a cloud rolling between, and never have to turn one's eyes away to look on a world of weariness and woe! Blest day, when wilt thou dawn? Rise, O unsetting sun! The joys of sense may leave us as soon as they will, for this shall make glorious amends. If to die is but to enter into uninterrupted communion with Jesus, then death is indeed gain, and the black drop is swallowed up in a sea of victory. Spurgeon: Faith’s Checkbook God Is Our AllyThe LORD Christ in the midst of His people is to be acknowledged and obeyed. He is the vice-regent of God and speaks in the Father’s name, and it is ours implicitly and immediately to do as He commands. We shall lose the promise if we disregard the precept. To full obedience how large the blessing! The LORD enters into a league with His people, offensive and defensive. He will bless those who bless us and curse those who curse us. God will go heart and soul with His people and enter in deepest sympathy into their position. What a protection this affords us! We need not concern ourselves about our adversaries when we are assured that they have become the adversaries of God. If Jehovah has taken up our quarrel, we may leave the foemen in His hands. So far as our own interest is concerned we have no enemies; but for the cause of truth and righteousness we take up arms and go forth to conflict. In this sacred war we are allied with the eternal God, and if we carefully obey the law of our LORD Jesus, He is engaged to put forth all His power on our behalf. Wherefore we fear no man. The Believer’s Daily Remembrancer Why Dost Thou Strive Against Him?A believer strive against his God! Yes, it is sometimes the case; he may strive against some of the doctrines of His word; or, against some of the dispensations of His providence; or, against some of the commands He has issued. But why dost strive against Him? His wisdom is infinite. His love is unchangeable. His ways are all righteous. His methods may be mysterious, and His dispensations trying; but His designs are all gracious and good. It is your duty to submit and be still. It is your privilege to believe and trust. It is rebellion and treason to strive against Him, for He giveth not account of any of His matters. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing. He is not accountable to any. He will not be questioned by the curious, or called to an account by the proud. He demands our acquiescence on the ground of His perfections, promises, and word. He will make all plain and clear to us by and by, and then we shall know as we are known, and be perfectly satisfied. He says, "Be still, and know that I am God." "Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord." Oh! let me live of Thee possess’d, In weakness, weariness, and pain! The anguish of my labouring breast, The daily cross I still sustain, For Him that languish’d on the tree, But lived, before He died for me. Bible League: Living His Word "When I make a promise, that promise is true. It will happen."— Isaiah 45:23 ERV The God of the Bible makes many promises. The Bible is full of them, and the great majority of the promises God makes are promises for good to those who love Him and serve Him. The promises God makes are more than mere words—they are true and will come to pass. He is not a liar and a deceiver like the devil. He does not make promises in order to trick people and destroy them. He is also not like men: fickle, capricious, and erratic. You can believe God's promises. "The one who lives forever, the God of Israel, does not lie and will not change his mind. He is not like a man who is always changing his mind" (1 Samuel 15:29). Speaking truth is what you can expect from God; it is one of His primary characteristics. "No, even if everyone else is a liar, God will always do what he says..." (Romans 3:4). We can build our lives on the firm foundation of God's promises. The words in our verse for today are words for those times in life when the fulfillment of God's promises seems far off. They are words to lift you up and give you hope. Take them to heart, then, and let them be the balm that your worried soul needs. Daily Light on the Daily Path John 10:29 "My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.2 Timothy 1:12 For this reason I also suffer these things, but I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed and I am convinced that He is able to guard what I have entrusted to Him until that day. 2 Timothy 4:18 The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed, and will bring me safely to His heavenly kingdom; to Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Romans 8:37-39 But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. • For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, • nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Colossians 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. James 2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren: did not God choose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? 2 Thessalonians 2:16,17 Now may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved us and given us eternal comfort and good hope by grace, • comfort and strengthen your hearts in every good work and word. New American Standard Bible Copyright © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif. All rights reserved. For Permission to Quote Information visit http://www.lockman.org. Tyndale Life Application Daily Devotion And those who are rich should boast that God has humbled them. They will fade away like a little flower in the field. The hot sun rises and the grass withers; the little flower droops and falls, and its beauty fades away. In the same way, the rich will fade away with all of their achievements. Insight If wealth, power, and status mean nothing to God, why do we attribute so much importance to them and so much honor to those who possess them? Do your material possessions give you goals and your only reason for living? If they were gone, what would be left? Challenge What you have in your heart, not your bank account, matters to God and endures for eternity. Devotional Hours Within the Bible Some Laws of the KingdomMatthew 5:17-26 , Matthew 5:38-48 We are not to think of Christianity as a new religion, distinct from that of the Old Testament. Rather, the one is a development from the other. Jesus was careful to say, “I came not to destroy but to fulfill .” Then He added, “Truly I say unto you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one jot or one tittle shall pass away from the law, until all things be accomplished.” This is the law of all life. No particle of matter is ever destroyed. It form may be changed but nothing of it passes out of existence. A log of wood may be burned in the fire but it is not destroyed. Some of it lies in ashes and some of it escapes into the air in the form of smoke and steam and chemical elements but not a jot or a tittle of the wood has been destroyed. All the wisdom of the ages still exists in the world. The songs men have sung, the words they have spoken, are living in the hearts and lives of our race. Our age is the inheritor of all past ages. Christianity holds all that was good and true and beautiful in Judaism. Jesus destroyed nothing of the religion of Moses. He was the fulfillment of all the prophecies. What went before Him was blossom ; in Him the fruit appeared. The blossom was not destroyed it only fell off because it had fulfilled its purpose. The Old Testament is not antiquated and outgrown. It, too, is the Word of God. Wherever we find Divine truth we are to accept it. Of course, there is a difference in the relative importance of Scripture words there are least and there are greatest commandments but he who breaks the least has grieved God and sinned against Him. He who obeys every Word of God, however small it may seem has lifted himself up in the rank of God’s children. The Sermon on the Mount teaches the spirituality of all true obedience. The scribes and Pharisees were great sticklers for the letter of the law but they went little farther. They missed its spirit. They interpreted “You shall not kill” literally as condemning murder but they did not think of applying it to murderous thoughts. Jesus spoke startlingly, “But I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgment.” That is, anger is murder. So serious is this interpretation of the law, that Jesus says we cannot truly worship God while we have bitterness dwelling in our heart. Hatred must give place to love, when we stand before God. If we have wronged another, and the hour of prayer comes with the wronged yet unrighted we must stop before the altar, interrupting our worship until we have gone to the one we have wronged and confessed and been forgiven. Perhaps we do not always think how serious an offense to God an unforgiving spirit is. Quarreling is not only ethically unlovely; it is also wickedly and spiritually evil. Acts are bad but thoughts are taken note of, in the presence of God. There is sin in a lustful look as well as in an unchaste act. Our thoughts have moral quality. Jesus enters into particulars and names certain sins which His disciples should carefully avoid. The Christian life should be without spot or blemish. One lesson He taught, was reverence in speech. “I say unto you, Swear not at all.” He does not refer to oaths taken in the courts of law but to profanity in speech. There is much irreverence in the conversation of many people in our day. Those who indulge in it often do it almost unconsciously. Some people far too many are recklessly profane. The profanity one hears in many places, even from the mouths of boys, is shocking. But there are any who think they never use profanity, whose speech is full of such forms of oaths as Jesus here refers to. We need to guard against every form of profanity in our speech, however veiled it may be. “Hallowed by Your name,” we say in the Lord’s Prayer; we should be careful that God’s name is always hallowed in our thought and in our conversation also, that it is never used lightly or irreverently. Jesus made a plea also for simplicity of speech. “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” There is a common tendency to exaggeration and over - emphasis in speech. Many people always try to say things in a strong and emphatic way. They are not content to say yes or no and stop with that. They rarely tell anything precisely according to the bare facts but color even the most common happenings. It would be a great deal better if we would learn to use simple words, without exaggeration of any kind. Someone says, “The more swearing, the more lying.” It would be well if we would remember that in speaking we are always overheard by One to whom the least shade of dishonesty is repulsive, and who is grieved by any profanity . It was the custom in the old days to return evil for evil, hurt for hurt, injury for injury. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” was the law. It is the common law yet with too many people. Our hearts urge us to seek revenge, and forgiving injuries is not natural with us. It is a law of the kingdom of heaven, which we are slow in learning. Even many who call themselves Christians, claim that they have a right to return evil for evil. A person who returns kindness for unkindness, who does an obliging act for one that was disobliging, is not commended as a manly man. The almost universal feeling, is that an offense must be retaliated. But that is not the way Jesus teaches us to do, when we have been wronged. “I say unto you, resist not him that is evil: but whoever smites you on your right cheek, turn to him the other also.” We are to endure wrong patiently. We are to forgive those who have injured us. This is one of the hardest lessons we have to learn in becoming Christians, and in the cultivation of the Christian graces. It is hard when others treat us unjustly, to keep on loving them and to be ready any moment to do them good. Yet that is what Jesus did, and He wants us to be like Him. He suffered wrongfully, and went on loving. He taught that we should forgive those who have injured us. When one of His disciples asked Him how often they should forgive others, and suggested seven times as a fair number; Jesus told him that not seven times but seventy times seven, they should forgive. That is, they should never cease to forgive. The word of Jesus which tell us that when one compels us to go a mile with him to show him the way and give him help on his journey we should go two miles, is suggestive of the spirit of all true Christian life. Some people do the best they possibly can do for others. They try to carry out the teaching of love in a very literal fashion. But they never go an inch farther than they are required to go; they never pay a penny more than the law demands. Jesus said, however, that we should cultivate this two - mile religion, doing more than we are expected to do, going father in helping others than we are required to go. Love should always abound in us. We are never to measure and calculate our kindness to others, giving just so much and no more. Generosity is to be the law of all our life. Anybody can go one mile with another but we are to do more than others and go two miles. The law of love to neighbors was taught in the Old Testament but like other Divine teachings which were not easy, the people made their own glosses over the Divine Commandment, changing the sense to suit their own nature feelings. They interpreted this ancient law thus, “You shall love your neighbor, and hate your enemy.” They defined neighbors to include only certain pleasant, congenial people, people who were kind to them, people whom they liked. Jesus taught a higher law. “But I say unto you, Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.” According to His teaching, our neighbor is anyone who needs our help. The parable of the Good Samaritan was Christ’s own illustration and explanation of the meaning of the commandment to love our neighbor. It was a Jew who was hurt, and lay bleeding by the roadside. It was a hated and despised Samaritan who proved neighbor to him, stopping on his way, at much cost to his own interests, caring for the man, nursing him, and providing a place in which he might recover. No matter who it may be that needs any help ministry or comfort from us we are not to ask about his nationality, whether he has been a good friend to us in the past, or not, or whether he belongs to our set we are to help him, because he is ‘our neighbor’. The Divine example is referred to in enforcing the lesson. God is kind to the sinner as well as to the righteous man. “He makes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust.” When He finds anyone in distress, He does not ask who he is. He imparts blessing to all alike. Since God is patient with those who wrong Him and neglect Him, if we are God’s children we must show the same spirit. The Master thus sets the highest standard for His followers. It is not enough for them to be as good as other people are they must be better. “And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?” was His question. Anybody can love those that love him. Anybody will greet those who greet him graciously. The Christian is to do more. “You therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” We should keep before us always the question, “ What are you doing more than others ?” Christian boys among their friends must not be content to live as the world’s boys do they must do more than they do, they must be better than they are. The Christian carpenter must do his work better than the carpenter who does not know Christ and follow Him. The Christian girl must be more gentle, more patient, more thoughtful, and more unselfish, more kind, than worldly girls are, because she belongs to Christ. In all life’s affairs, we must remember that having given ourselves to Christ, there rests upon us an obligation for a more beautiful life, for nobler service, for sweeter living, for larger usefulness, for Christ like helpfulness, because we represent our Master, and are called to be perfect, even as our Father in heaven is perfect. Bible in a Year Old Testament ReadingHosea 5-8 Hosea 5 -- Judgments against the Priests, People, and Princes for Their Manifold Sins NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Hosea 6 -- Exhortations to Repent; Israel's Refusal NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Hosea 7 -- Ephraim's Iniquity NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Hosea 8 -- Israel Will Reap the Whirlwind NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB New Testament Reading Revelation 1 Revelation 1 -- John's Greeting to the Seven Churches and Vision on Patmos NIV NLT ESV NAS GWT KJV ASV ERV DRB Reading Plan Courtesy of Christian Classics Etherial Library. |
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