Darkness to Light

by: carole l. Haines

It’s been a little while since I last wrote, but God really spoke to my heart out of the following verse this morning, so I thought I’d share what He encouraged me with.

⁶ 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 God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. 2 Corinthians 4:6 (NIV)

I love how this verse shows us that, God made light shine out of darkness. It then immediately says that He made His light to shine in our hearts to give us light. If we have never been made aware of the darkness within our own hearts, we will not truly appreciate the light that God places in us through faith in Jesus.

We begin to feel our darkness and we are tempted to shy away, cover it up, paint it a different color, put a spin on it, or don a pair or Rose-colored glasses. Don’t!
Instead, embrace what God reveals about your darkness with the concurrent knowledge that He is able to crush that darkness with His light.  God only reveals to us what we need to see in order to lead us to the repentance that leads to life in Him. Repentance isn’t just for the time we first come to Christ. Repentance and confession is something we need all the way through our walk with Christ on this earth. We are not stuck in the revelation of Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?
God tells us He understands our heart and is greater than it.
¹⁸ Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth. ¹⁹ We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him ²⁰ in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. ²¹ Beloved, if our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God; ²² and whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight.  (1 John 3:18-22)

We don’t need to be afraid of the Darkness within, because He is greater than it and already knows it. He can forgive us and free us from it. But we must entrust Him with it through confession. Confession is agreeing with God about our sin. We can’t agree with what we do not allow ourselves to see. The first step in transformation is the acknowledgement of the sin and darkness within our hearts which leads to a true repentance and sincere joy over the Grace of God.

Thank You, Father, that you love us so much and want to free us from all that separates us from You.  Thank You, Jesus for making that possible through Your death, burial and resurrection. Thank your for causing Your light to extinguish our darkness.