Tag: light

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Spiritual Affective Disorder

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is unhealthy, your body is filled with darkness. Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light.” Luke‬ ‭11:33-36‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Jesus launches into a famous discussion about light and darkness. And, it’s an object lesson for all time, all people. It’s pretty hard NOT to know or see the difference between light and dark. We spend our whole life learning it from the natural patterns of the sun. Personally, I love June because it’s the most sunlit month of the year. Contrarily, December is the darkest (more time for Christmas lights).

When you walk into your home after dark, you tend to want to turn on the lights. Of course, ancients lit lamps. Forgetting the idea of modern dimmers for a moment, we don’t normally make light just to dim it. In other words, we let it do it’s work illuminating.

Jesus then uses this everyday experience to jump into a spiritual lesson. He says, your eye is like a lamp. Hmmm, how so Jesus? Our eyes are gateways, inputs, data receptors to our soul. Yes, of course it goes directly to our brain, which flips images, makes sense of what we are seeing, then processes an intense interpretation of what our eyes see. But, Jesus makes it sound like our eyes (inputs) provide light for our body. Does our body need light? Physically, yes, it does. Not getting enough of it in our Northern States can mean mental trouble. It’s called seasonal affective disorder (SAD). It also provides a healthy dose of Vitamin D (we’ve heard a lot about that with Covid).

But Jesus wasn’t necessarily talking about the body’s physical health, he was talking about our soul, the actual health of our soul. Can a soul be sick, anemic? Yep, it can. When Jesus tells us to check the clarity (NLT, “healthy”) of our eye, he uses the word, haplous, which means single (undivided) focus, i.e. without a (secret) “double agenda.” He also compares the eye when it is clouded, blurred (NLT, “unhealthy) and oddly uses the word ponéros, which means evil, bad, wicked, malicious, or slothful.

Here’s the kicker, people normally want a healthy body and soul but don’t usually associate those ideals with what comes through our eyes, or the things we focus on. Jesus says there is a direct connection to what we focus on, what we take in and a healthy soul. Then Jesus Bible drops this truth, be careful you’re not actually allowing in or looking for darkness pretending or thinking that it’s light! Whoa. If our eyes are windows to our soul (I think they are), then what comes in those windows has direct access to our bodies and our souls.

Good old OT Job in 31:1, made himself a contract with his eyes, to NOT look at some things. Folks can get a whole different kind of S.A.D. by not tending to what they are letting into their lives. They can find themselves with a spiritual affective disorder.

Prayer

Dad,
Well, even if I’m not in tip-top physical shape, I sure don’t want to be spiritually anemic, especially knowing it’s because of what I’m taking into my view, my focus, my attention. Help me keep my eyes clear, free from evil, free from darkness. Your Word helps tremendously! Your word is a light tending to my feet and to my path forward. Ps 119:105. I will continue to hide it in my heart so I will not sin against you.

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Dumb Human Tricks of pretending Darkness is Light!

Reading Time: 3 minutes 
“Don’t be fooled by those who try to excuse these sins, for the anger of God will fall on all who disobey him. Don’t participate in the things these people do. For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light! For this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. Carefully determine what pleases the Lord. Take no part in the worthless deeds of evil and darkness; instead, expose them. It is shameful even to talk about the things that ungodly people do in secret. But their evil intentions will be exposed when the light shines on them, for the light makes everything visible. This is why it is said, “Awake, O sleeper, rise up from the dead, and Christ will give you light.” Ephesians‬ ‭5:6-14‬ ‭NLT‬‬


New Living Translation’s attempt to communicate Paul’s intent uses the word, “fooled,” but really it’s don’t be apatáō – deceived, using tactics like seduction, giving dis­torted impressions and luring into deception. And we do so with kenos: empty, worthless, of no value, words. It’s a if Paul knows how humans justify our behaviors by just word-vomiting all over each other. Ah, yes, we spin and wordsmith just the right phrases and repeat them so often that we begin to believe our own lies.

It all begins by lying to ourselves, doesn’t it? We’ve got to. We know it’s wrong. Or, at least I believe that we have a God-given conscience that tells us we’re wrong, but we want to do it anyways. What else are we going to do? Should we go around admitting we’re wrong and acting foolishly? No! We want to DO WRONG but BE RIGHT about it!

We say to ourselves and others, with as much hubris vibrato we can muster, “I am not sinning, you just misunderstand truth.”

Distraction is the core of magic, right? “Look over here, I’ll prove to you that my behaviors are not bad, they are actually good and helpful to my soul and society.” Then the inevitable, “wouldn’t you love to join me in my own version of truth?” There’s no way I’m going to change my behavior, so I will distort the truth!

Paul kinda says that’s ridiculously silly. He says that’s like calling the darkness, light (probably vice versa as well). Yep, dark is dark and light is light. So to switch them means that you’ve gone mental, or traded a truth for a lie.

So that’s why it’s so important to drag behaviors or deeds of darkness out of the shadows, out of the night and into the daylight! To prop up a good lie, a dark behavior, to force EVERYONE to unilaterally admit it’s true and good – it has to be paraded and propagated in the actual light of day.

The best way to seduce the world into accepting a wrong behavior is to drag that thing into the daytime and get a whole bunch of people to agree that it’s good and not bad, it’s truth and not a lie!

Paul says that God’s light, which is not the daylight produced by the sun, but eternal light that emanates from the Son of God himself will EXPOSE darkness and make everything and everyone see truth. Paul says to BE a believer means there is no deceptively seducing yourself or others with ridiculous, empty spinning of truth.

You stand, full on in the light of Jesus Christ and see yourself as a sinner, exposed but also saved by His grace. And as this light of Christ penetrates our soul, there is no need to lie or deny but allow Him and him alone to SEE us and forgive us.

Prayer

Dad,
Wow, we are so creative to avoid truth! Why are we so good at being bad and constantly convincing ourselves that it’s okay? Are we so determined to get away from you and be “independent” of your goodness that we will spend our lives calling lies, truth and darkness, light? I am really that sinful, aren’t I? Forgive me. Forgive us. It’s so embarrassing to know that these thoughts and behaviors exist in our “freedom” and free-will. Come quickly Lord Jesus, for our sin is great and our deception has gone viral.