Tag Archives: the light of the world

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God, Walking in the Spirit

Children of Light: the attributes of jasper.

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“For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as Children of light.” (Ephesians 5:8)

The New Self
Ephesians 4: 17-24 give us some clear principles of how to walk in the spirit as new creations:

“This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

Paul sums this up in a single verse in the next chapter of this letter:

“For once you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as Children of light.“ (Ephesians 5:8)

Human thinking and the philosophy of the world tells us that what is natural grows and develops; it may become more complex and it may grow bigger, but in essence it remains the same: the genes of the baby are the genes of the adult. We might seek to improve the self, but we still keep the core.

The Bible gives us a different model: we “put off” the old self because everything that it grows in is based on desire and deception – “deceitful lusts” –  and we “put on” a new self entirely. The first principle of the Christian life is that this old self dies at the cross and is replaced by a God-given new spiritual self that is born from heaven, “created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” While our human brains cannot adequately conceptualize the spiritual realm that we belong to, God has given us some revelation of heavenly realities through the Apostle John, including a glimpse of the details of something in particular that that comes down from heaven: the construction of the new Jerusalem.

“The construction of its wall was of jasper; and the city was pure gold, like clear glass. The foundations of the wall of the city were adorned with all kinds of precious stones: the first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, the fifth sardonyx, the sixth sardius, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst.” (Revelation 21: 18-20)

These are not just building bricks, they are stones of a different order, whose purpose is not just construction, but the reflection of light. And we are told unambiguously what is the nature of the light that shines there:

“The city had no need of the sun or of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God illuminated it. The Lamb is its light. And the nations of those who are saved shall walk in its light, and the kings of the earth bring their glory and honour into it.” (Rev 21:23-24)

Since we ourselves are “light in the Lord“, and our call is to “walk as Children of light,“ born from above and walking in the spirit that comes from above, and since “the nations of those who are saved” will also be walking in this light, then it makes sense to consider in a little depth the nature of the heavenly light that shines in the dimension of the spirit and which God has chosen us to reflect into the world.

Pure Light
It strikes me every time I read that description of the stones of the new Jerusalem that there are some notable gems missing: specifically diamonds and rubies – those that are probably the most highly prized on earth. In an attempt to understand more of the nature of those 12 foundation stones in the walls of the new Jerusalem, scientists took very thin slices of each of them, along with other precious stones not listed there, including diamonds and rubies, and shone pure light through them. To achieve “pure”  light they polarised it twice, the second time at a 90° angle to the first. The result was astonishing. When this pure light was shown through the 12 “heavenly” stones it refracted into brilliant colours all around, irrespective of the angle that it shone through. In scientific language, the heavenly stones have isotropic properties. Diamonds and rubies however are anisotropic: when the pure light was shone through them there was no refraction at all. It was black – which is why they have to be specially cut so that a prism is created.

Paramount among the heavenly stones is Jasper. It was the first foundation Stone of the wall of the city, the wall itself was constructed of Jasper, and in Revelation 4:3 we read that the One who sat on the throne – God Himself – was “like a jasper and a sardius stone and appearance.“ In the world, “diamonds are a girl’s best friend.” But Jaspers?? When I was a boy, Jaspers were what were used to call wasps (don’t ask me why. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise…)   The Lamb was the light that filled the new Jerusalem with glory and indescribable colour refracting from the wall made of a material that compared in beauty with the appearance of God Himself, and from the twelve isotropic gemstone settings of its foundations. The heavenly light that surrounds us where we are seated in spiritual realms turns the Kohinoor Diamond into a lump of coal.

Jesus said, “If … the light that is in you is darkness, then how great is that darkness!” (Matt 6:23)

The world’s values of success and prominence tempt us, whether in the church or out of it, to walk in the light of diamonds, but  to walk as children of heavenly light we must be renewed in the spirit of our minds. Not the diamonds of success but the Jaspers of heaven, revealing the light of God whose children we are.

The Light of the World
Jesus makes it clear that not only is He the light of the world, but so are we. (Matt 5:14) If our minds are filled with heavenly light, it will be revealed in our words and our deeds. David knew this when he prayed “Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight,” and in Philippians 4: 8 – 9 we read:

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with you.”

When we make it our focus to “meditate on these things,“ we are setting the foundations of our wall with God’s chosen gemstones. Furthermore, we are assured that if we do this, “The God of Peace will be with us.” If we are hungry for the presence of God, it seems that we begin with the renewal of our minds.  Paul writes to the Corinthians “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ,“ (1 Cor 11:1)  and in the above verses he tells us explicitly how to go about it. “The things which you learned and received and heard and saw in me, these do.” The more heavenly stones that we set into the walls of our thinking, the more easily their light can reveal the ones that don’t belong. Not diamonds, but jaspers.

My own “finally brethren,” is this: being renewed in the spirit of our minds is not just about being right with God in our thinking, although of course this will be the case. But the takeaway has to be the sheer rainbow beauty and brilliance of the heavenly light that Jesus has given us to walk in. This is His glory, and is no less than He deserves. I think it is when we truly put on our new self and walk in the light of who we are in Christ that Isaiah 60:3  can start to become a reality in our lives:

“Nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising.”

The material about the 12 foundations stones is from an In Depth Interview by David Aldous of GOD-TV (with David Pawson 2000) on The New Heaven and The New Earth. To watch the extract, click here: https://youtu.be/HFMrQUjp-Aw

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Walking in the Spirit

Spirit of Truth

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I took some photographs recently of a bird flying over a lake. It was a long way off, but I could see that it was a tern, as occasionally it hovered over the water then dived in to catch a fish. When I got home and looked at the pictures on my computer, I got very excited, because I saw that it had mostly black plumage. A black tern! We don’t see many of these in the UK, and they are a species to get excited about if you are a birder over here. But when I looked at it more closely, I realised that the colouring wasn’t quite right: there was too much white underneath even though the rest of it looked right. So I boosted up the brightness and reduced the shadows on my computer, and this is what I found: it wasn’t a black tern at all that I had seen fishing by the lake, but one of the more widespread species, a common tern. My “black tern” just been created by the shadows on its plumage  cast by the morning sun.

Thinking about that, it made me realise how easily shadows can occur in what we look at, so that what we see is not the truth, but just a creation of our own self. In the afternoon Anne and I went to a local nature reserve with a friend. There are three ways of getting there that are roughly equidistant: it’s about 25 minutes away. In the car we took the route I usually take, down a country lane, and I said to Anne that I found this way slightly quicker. Michael agreed, adding that it could depend on the traffic as well. On the way back we found ourselves behind a tractor, so at the roundabout I chose the motorway route instead because I didn’t want to be behind a tractor – even though I would have quickly overtaken it on the dual carriageway. I said: “actually this way is probably just as quick.” Anne said: “That’s interesting, because on the way here, you said the lane was the quickest, and now this way is just as quick. They can’t both be true!“ She was right. They couldn’t both be true. My words were not about the truth, but about what I was trying to prove. This wasn’t even an emotionally charged situation: they were both just throwaway comments about driving choices. But that’s the point: I was justifying my choices, not expressing truth. My focus wasn’t the driving distance at all, but my decisions. In other words, my shadows were colouring what I was looking at. I was seeing a black tern.

As even many atheists know, Jesus said: “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” Truth is found in Jesus. When He first introduced the notion of the coming Holy Spirit to His disciples,  Jesus said this: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14: 16-17) The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Truth. We call Him Holy Spirit; Jesus calls Him, emphatically, “Spirit of Truth.” (John 14:17, John 15:26, John 16:23.) Without the Holy Spirit, whom the world doesn’t know, reality will always be obscured. Just like I had to boost the brightness on my computer to see the real bird, it is only when the brightness of the Light of the world is turned up that we see the reality of life.  “Whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” (John 3:19)

James said: “All good and perfect gifts come down from above from the Father of lights, in whom there is no shadow of turning.” (James 1:17) God doesn’t change. He is the Father of lights: He created the lights in the universe, and by His word – “Let there be light” – He created material light itself. In His light, we can see the truth; without His light, we only see our own shadows. The Light of the world never changes: He is totally faithful to His word, He is always love, He is always truth. Every turn in our emotions and our agendas casts a shadow: only in Jesus, by the light of the Holy Spirit, are there no black terns, no shadow of terning.

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

The lighthouse on the Rock

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Your feet will not slip, and My light is shining in you

“Blessed is the man You choose,
And cause to approach You,
That he may dwell in Your courts.
We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Of Your holy temple.

By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us,
O God of our salvation,
You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth,
And of the far-off seas;

Who established the mountains by His strength,
Being clothed with power;

You who still the noise of the seas,
The noise of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples”  Psalm 65: 4-7

If you felt God called you to be a lighthouse, yet everything seems dark; if all you seem to know is the waves crashing against the rock, and it seems like your light has gone out, and sometimes you even doubt that it was ever shining; if you are saying: “Lord, this isn’t how I thought it was going to turn out!” He says to you:

“You are standing on the rock, and your feet will not slip. However hard the waves beat against it, they are passing ephemera; they have no power against me. Even though one wave after another beats against the place where you stand, the storm itself will pass and the sea will be calm and bathed in beautiful Sonshine. I have chosen you to dwell in my courts, and you are mine. Your light has not gone out, for I am the light that shines in you, and there are many in the storm that you cannot see who are being drawn to me through your light. When the storm has passed you will see them, you will see their sails filled with the wind of my Spirit, and you will know that they have been kept safe  because I have put you where you are. Trust me and dwell in my courts while the storm rages around you. I am the one who stills the noise of the seas and the tumult of the peoples, and my light is powerful in you.”