December days can feel especially dark—short hours of sunlight, long stretches of quiet, and the weight of another year almost gone. In a far deeper way, David knew what it was to sit in darkness: pursued by enemies, misunderstood, overwhelmed. In Psalm 18:28, he celebrates that God Himself steps into that darkness and turns his life into a lamp—something not only lit, but useful. This one simple line invites us to trust that God is not frightened by our night; He is ready to enter it and flip on the light.

The God Who Lights Your Lamp

Psalm 18:28 says, “For You, O LORD, light my lamp; my God lights up my darkness”. Notice the order: God does not hand David a box of spiritual candles and wish him luck; He personally lights the lamp. The initiative is His. Our role is not to manufacture our own glow, but to admit that without Him, we are sitting in the dark. That is humbling, but it is also freeing. We can stop pretending to be our own source of strength and wisdom.

This is the same God David praises elsewhere: “The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life—whom shall I dread?” (Psalm 27:1). Light and salvation belong together. When God saves, He also illumines. He shows us who He is, who we are, and what is really going on around us. If you feel surrounded, remember: the darkness around you is not the final reality. The Lord who saved you in Christ is the Lord who lights your lamp, right where you are.

Letting His Light Into Your Darkness

God’s light is not just for “out there”—it is for the shadows inside us. There are parts of our hearts we would rather keep dim: sins we excuse, wounds we hide, fears we try to outrun. But God does some of His most tender work where we are most afraid to let Him in. “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). When we draw near to Him, we are inviting that pure, searching light into every corner.

John goes on, “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). Walking in the light is not about perfection; it is about honesty. Confession, repentance, and faith are how we open the shutters. We stop living in half-truths and step into the mercy Jesus purchased. The light may expose what we would prefer to ignore, but it also brings cleansing, freedom, and a deeper, truer fellowship with God and His people.

Lit to Shine in a Dark World

When God lights your lamp, it is never only for you. Jesus said, “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a basket. Instead, they set it on a stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house” (Matthew 5:14–15). The God who lights your darkness intends to make you a steady, quiet testimony in someone else’s night—at your table, in your workplace, among your neighbors. Your obedience, your courage, your kindness, your faithfulness in the mundane all become part of His illumination.

Paul reminds us where this light ultimately comes from: “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made His light shine 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 same God who spoke physical light into existence has placed the light of Christ within you. Today, you do not have to create spiritual fireworks; you simply have to refuse to hide the lamp He has already lit. Speak of Christ. Live like His promises are true. Let that God-given light spill into every room you enter.

Lord, thank You for lighting my lamp and shining into my darkness through Jesus. Today, help me walk honestly in Your light and boldly shine for You wherever You place me.

Many evangelical teachers insist so strongly upon free, unconditional grace as to create the impression that sin is not a serious matter and that God cares very little about it! They make it seem that God is only concerned with our escaping the consequences. The gospel, then, in practical application, means little more than a way to escape the fruits of our past! But the heart that has felt the weight of its own sin and has seen the dread whiteness of the Most High God will never believe that a message of forgiveness without transformation is a message of good news. To remit a man's past without transforming his present is to violate the moral sincerity of his own heart. To that kind of thing God will be no party! For to offer a sinner the gift of salvation based upon the work of Christ, while at the same time allowing him to retain the idea that the gift carries with it no moral implications, is to do him untold injury where it hurts him most!

God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. - Colossians 1:27

There is a river in Switzerland fed by two uniting streams bearing the same name, one of them called the " white," one of them the "grey," or dark. One comes down from the glaciers, and bears the half-melted snow in its white ripple; the other flows through a lovely valley, and is discolored by its earth. They unite in one common current. So in the two verses (Romans 15:4 and Romans 15:13) we have two streams, a white and a black, and they both blend together and flow out into a common hope. In the former of them we have the dark stream - "through patience and comfort," which implies affliction and effort. The issue and outcome of all difficulty, trial, sorrow, ought to be hope. And in the other verse we have the other valley, down which the light stream comes - " the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope." So both halves of the possible human experience are meant to end in the same blessed result; and whether you go round on the one side of the sphere of human life, or whether you take the other hemisphere, you come to the same point, if you have traveled with God’s hand in yours, and with Him for your Guide.

I have traced the genealogy of the hope which is the child of the night. But we have also a hope that is born of the day, the child of sunshine and gladness, and that is set before us in the second of the two verses I have quoted. The darkness and the light are both alike to our hope, in so far as each may become the occasion for its exercise. It is not only to be the sweet juice pressed from our hearts by the wine-press of calamities, but that which flows of itself from hearts ripened and mellowed under the sunshine of God-given blessedness.

We have seen that the bridge by which sorrow led to hope was perseverance and courage; in this second analysis of the origin of hope, joy and peace are the bridge by which faith passes over into it. Observe the difference: There is no direct connection between affliction and hope, but there is between joy and hope. We have no right to say, "Because I suffer I shall possess good in the future "; but we have a right to say, "Because I rejoice - of course with a joy in God - I shall never cease to rejoice in Him." Such joy is the prophet of its own immortality and completion. And, on the other hand, the joy and peace which are naturally the direct progenitors of Christian hope are the children of faith. So that we have here two generations, as it were, of hope’s ancestors. Faith produces joy and peace, and these again produce hope.

Faith leads to joy and peace. Paul has found - and if we only put it to the proof, we shall also find - that the simple exercise of simple faith fills the soul with "a joy and peace." Gladness in all its variety, and in full measure, calm repose in every kind, and abundant in its still depth, will pour into my heart as water does into a vessel on condition of my taking away the barrier and opening my heart through faith. Trust, and thou shalt be calm. In the measure of thy trust shall be the measure of thy joy and peace.