Ask the Lord to help you to see the beauty and glory of His light. Pray that God’s living and active Word would speak to your heart and impress on your heart His amazing truths.
Read Isaiah 9:2
The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone.
Light is the hope of all who are in darkness. Darkness is synonymous with hopelessness, depression, & despair. It symbolizes futility. We see it in the world as we witness the crime, disease, alcohol and drug addiction, depression, suicide, abuse, preoccupation with dark things, gender confusion, atheism; the world is full of demonic darkness. Some people know they are in darkness. They feel the darkness deep inside. Many do not know that they are in darkness which symbolizes our lost condition.
*Pull out a journal & reflect on the bold questions below:
What does Scripture says about our condition before Jesus came into our lives? Read Ephesians 2:1-3; 12-13 & 2 Corinthians 4:4.
Our future looked bleak. We were searching for life in all the wrong places and it left us empty. We were stumbling around in darkness, spiritually blind. But to us—the enemies of God, the children of wrath, those in deep darkness, a light has shone. WOW. On the lowly, the undeserving, those sinning against God, rebelling against Him, the weak and ungodly, those in deep darkness…He has shone His light.
This light was not within ourselves. It was not from our world. This was the mistake the Israelites were making in the previous chapter. They were looking for hope from the king or from the mediums or within themselves, but that left them in despair. There is no hope for this world if we look to the earth or to ourselves. The light must shine down from outside. It must shine from the One who is the source of all hope, all goodness and all truth.
Can you remember a time that you were in spiritual darkness without hope and without God in the world? What was it like when God shone His light into your heart?
Can you remember a time that you went through a season that felt dark? Where did you find hope? How did the light of God’s Word and presence shine into that situation?
Jesus’ presence makes all the difference in the world. Because He entered into our broken world, we have hope that His light can extinguish the darkness and conquer evil.
Jesus ‘presence makes all the difference in our lives. Because He is Emmanuel, God with us, we can have unshakable confidence in His love for us and His plan to work all things for our good.
Jesus give us true HOPE.
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