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Shining A Little Light...


When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.                                                                                                            (John 8:12)  

           Many people have never seen real darkness. Even at night, there is often starlight, moonlight, city lights, street lights, garage lights, emergency lights, traffic lights, car lights, nightlights or some other source of illumination. If you tour a cave, chances are good that the guide will allow you to experience real darkness. They turn out the lights and no matter how long you wait for your eyes to adjust, you can't see anything. Even if you remember which direction you have to go to get out of the cave, you would have only three hopes for escape: a) the lights coming back on, b) guide ropes  or c) a miracle.
        We tend to take light for granted. The sun shines and provides the heat and light that make life possible and even enjoyable. Because of it, we can function and make sense of things. Our focus isn't often on the light, but on what the light makes visible. It is in making those things visible that the light becomes vitally important, even indispensable.
        When Jesus said that He is the light of the world, He wasn't talking about being a candle on a birthday cake or a light on a tree. He wasn't comparing Himself to a decoration. Apart from the light that He provides, we do not have the means to live, to enjoy living, to function or to understand the universe in which we live. Nancy Pearcey wrote a book called Finding Truth. It explores this idea more fully and I recommend it. She contends that all other religions and philosophies are fatally reductionist. Each leaves something that we intuitively know to be true out or unexplained (e.g., the materialist rejects the possibility of free will, yet even materialists cannot function in life consistently on the basis of their actually being nothing more than robots. We "have no choice" but to be deluded that we have a choice.)
           The answers provided by Christ with regard to what is real, what is the nature of external reality, what is a human being, what happens when a person dies, how is it possible to know anything at all, how do we know right from wrong, what is the meaning of human history and what commitments are consistent with the answers to the rest of the questions are not only consistent within themselves, but also with human experience.
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In the sky: New Moon  Jupiter at opposition (biggest and brightest)
Birthday of Kenneth Graham, Oliver Wendall Holmes, Joseph Lee

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