This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

John 3:19-21

This is the verdict of Christianity, of God, and of the cross.  This is the judgement.  Jesus didn’t come into the world to condemn the world, but that through Him, it might be saved.  Yet, why didn’t people come to Him?  By and large, they thought they were righteous, they thought they were the ones who needed to be exalted, they were afraid of losing what they had.

We all come to the world empty.  The problem with the religious leaders of Jesus’ day was that they couldn’t see that it was God right in front of them, in human form.

I have nothing righteous to give.  I have nothing worthwhile to offer.  In me, that is my flesh, dwells no good thing (Romans 7:18).

The only thing of value is faith expressing itself through love, and the one, the very one thing that an unsaved person CANNOT do is love (1 John 4:7-8).  He who abides in love, abides in God.

The world may have a form of something that looks like love, but when push comes to shove, it always fails and show its true color.  When you begin to talk about sin, it gets angry and begins to revile.  Instead of letting the light come within, penetrate, and reveal, it hides itself.  As Isaiah prophesied and Jesus quoted, ” Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts, and return and be healed.” (Isaiah 6:10 portion).

Why the verdict?  Because light had come.  Light came, and revealed, and men loved darkness rather than the light.

Light is that which reveals.  Light makes a thing visible.  What in a person’s life is not desirable to be seen?  What would we rather keep hidden?  Would you be comfortable with every motive of every thought being revealed?  Why not?  Every fear, every selfish motive, every false thing.  This is the level of God’s perfection.  This is the level of God’s righteous standard.  This is the depth of His gaze.  Until we realize that we are responsible for every idle word, we don’t even realize what all the blood covers.

When Jesus came, He said He was The Way.  Not a way, not part of the way, not showing the way, He was the way.  Any other religion that claims to have a “way” is simply a counterfeit, and while it may have a form to attempt to become holy, it will always fall short because on some level, all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory (Romans 3:23).  Only the power of the eternal blood of Christ MAKES one holy in their innermost being now, instead of always trying to become it on ones own.

When every motive is laid before Him, and all our efforts are made vain, only He can mend the broken, and only He makes crooked ways straight.

When we, by His strength, expose ourselves, and come into the light, we find true fellowship.  When we feel isolated, we must consider whether it isn’t because on some level, we have chosen to keep something hidden.  When we bring our deepest, darkest, shameful events, and fully repent, we are fully free.  It is what is the dark that binds us.

Only when we release every wall, only when we let every dark corner go, He comes, and lights us as though the light of a lamp is upon us.