All of us experience challenges in our lives, and sometimes they are beyond anything we could have imagined. Issues in our marriages, finances, jobs, and other relationships make us question what we’ve done so wrong as to deserve such unhappiness. It’s especially challenging when many of these issues hit you all at once. It’s makes us feel nervous, overwhelmed, and helpless. We don’t think that anyone can understand what we’re going through, but God can, and He does. He is intimately familiar with every detail of our problems and issues, and He wants us to know that no matter what we’re going through, He has our backs. Things may be dark, but they will not always be that way, and trusting in God’s power and love will help us navigate through the tough times and come out victorious on the other side.
God is light
1John 1:5(NLT) says, “This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all.” This is such an important truth for us to believe, and we should invest every ounce of our faith in it. There is no darkness in God whatsoever. He is all love and light, and everything that He does is brilliant, vibrant, and alive with splendor. Many of us have been taught a different view than the truth that is revealed in 1John 1:5. We were taught that God punishes people at random, and that we can never know when it’s our time to be whammed unmercifully with a devastating set back. This is not the truth about our loving Heavenly Father, but many people are stuck in this pattern of wrong believing.
Light and punishment are not friends. They don’t go together, and when we understand the truth of who God is, we will see this very clearly and be set free. 1John 4:18(NLT) declares, “Such love has no fear, because perfect love expels all fear. If we are afraid, it is for fear of punishment, and this shows that we have not fully experienced his perfect love.” God’s perfect love cancels out fear. It annihilates all traces of it. And punishment never enters love’s equation, because punishment is darkness. Punishment is the result of not knowing and recognizing the power of God’s love. Any person that is in this condition in their minds and hearts can get out it by accepting Christ!
This is a dark and evil world that we live in—no sense in denying it, but Jesus Christ is the light! He has overcome the world and through him, so can we. Romans 10:9-10 tells us that when we believe, acknowledge, and confess with our mouths that Jesus Christ is Lord, and we believe that God raised him from the dead by the Holy Spirit, we will be saved! It’s believing with our whole hearts in Christ as our Lord and Savior that frees us from quilt, sin, and condemnation, and it is with the mouth that we acknowledge, confess, and confirm receipt of the salvation that he offers us.
We are the light of Christ
God’s Word tells us in Ephesians 5:8(NLT), “For once you were full of darkness, but now you have light from the Lord. So live as people of light!” At one time in our lives, we were intimately acquainted with darkness. We had not yet come alive to God through Jesus Christ, but we were walking around with blinders on. That all changed when we believed that God resurrected Jesus Christ and we confessed that he is Lord! Our believing and confession caused us to be transferred from fear to faith, from death to life, and from darkness to light. Just as our faith and confession caused the miracle of salvation to manifest in our lives, our faith and confession of God’s truth will rescue us from any other darkness the enemy sends our way.
1John 4:15-17(NLT) says, “15 All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God. 16 We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love. God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. 17 And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.” It’s impossible for God’s love to fail, so we can’t be defeated when we have faith in Him through Jesus Christ. Even when life feels out of our control, we can rejoice because we know the One that is always in control. He has all power in His hands, and we can turn over all our concerns to the Lord. As we continue to confess the positives of His Word over our circumstances and have faith in God, we will walk in the light and the victory He has given us through Jesus Christ.■
Holy Bible, New Living Translation copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
"Walking in God’s Light During Tough Times", written for victoryinjesuschrist.life. Copyright© 2024. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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