FBC Daily Devotional – October 12, 2021

Believing in the Light While It Is Available

Well, good Tuesday morning to you. Hope your day is starting off well, and if you were able to get into God's Word this morning, then it should have started off well. It's always a good way to start the day.

If you haven't had a chance to do that yet, then perhaps these few thoughts from John chapter 12 will be an encouragement to you and get you thinking in the right direction today. But I wanted to focus on a couple of verses near the end of our passage, John 12.

We were to read verses 20 to 50. In verses 36 to 40, there's a very interesting few comments. Verse 36 says, Jesus says to the people who are listening to him, he says, While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light.

All right, so what Jesus makes very clear there is that in order to be a son of light, a child of the light, and that's just another way of saying, in order to be converted, in order to be a follower of Jesus, in order to be a Christian, in order to enter the kingdom of God, a lot of these phrases are interchangeable, then you have to believe in the light.

What Jesus is talking about is in the truth that he has communicated in him. So to believe in the light is to believe in Jesus, to receive him as one's personal Lord and Savior. All right, so he says, believe in the light while you have the light, that you may become children of light.

Then it goes on to say, these things Jesus spoke and departed and was hidden from them, and he was hidden from them. So it was a very graphic way of saying, he wasn't always going to be there. The light is not always going to be available to you.

Now, that's a lesson for us in our day. When the Word of God is opened and it is taught or preached, that's the light is being, if it's done right, honestly, honorably, accurately, that's the light. The light is shining forth and it should shine in some way or another on Jesus, on who he is, but that's the light shining forth.

And the person hearing that needs to believe it, needs to receive that light while it's available. If you don't, that light's going to be gone. Now it goes on to say, what I really want to focus on is the next few verses where the next verse says, but although he, Jesus, had done so many signs before them, miraculous things, they did not believe in him.

Human Unbelief in the Face of Jesus' Signs

Isn't that amazing? I mean, you think about some of the miracles that Jesus performed, and here's a group of people. Now get the picture here. Here's a group of people. They're seeing the very same thing.

They're hearing exactly the same words, and some of them, hearing Jesus, seeing what he does, they respond with faith and obedience and submission. They receive him. But others, seeing the same things, hearing the same truth taught, they don't believe in him.

They reject him. How do we explain this? How do we understand this? Well, the fact that those who saw the signs and heard what Jesus said and still did not believe in him, that testifies to the deadness of the human heart.

That, you know, we are dead in trespasses and sins. That's our natural state. So unless something supernatural happens to us, unless God's Spirit graciously does a work in us, to quicken us, to make us alive, to believe, to receive that light, and to believe, then we will remain in our deadness, and we will not believe.

This is the case here. So in fact, listen to how the passage continues. They did not believe in him. They did not believe in him in order that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke.

Isaiah spoke and said, Lord, who has believed our report, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? That was the prophecy. And then the next verse says, therefore, listen, they could not believe, because Isaiah said again, He, God, has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts, and turn so that I should heal them.

These things Isaiah said when he saw the Lord's glory. Here's the point. In our natural fallenness, we have blind eyes, we have hard hearts, and we will not believe. It takes a supernatural work of God in his grace to open those blind eyes, to soften those hard hearts.

Salvation by Grace Alone Through Faith Alone in Christ Alone

So if you have come to faith in Jesus, this is just a this is just another reminder that you have no claim on that whatsoever. You have no no boast. You have no boast. You have come to Christ because God has graciously opened your eyes and softened your heart.

And your faith in Christ is owed to the grace of God. This is what we mean when we say that salvation is by faith alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. And it is not of our works.

It is not of us, lest any of us should have something to boast. So my friend, if you have received the light while it was available to you, and you have believed, then give thanks to God for his grace to you in opening your eyes to see.

And so Father, we do thank you today. We thank you for your amazing grace. We realize that we are dead in trespasses and sins, and we will remain dead unless you graciously grant life. Thank you for all listening today who could testify to the life-giving power of the grace of God.

Bless these thoughts to our hearts, we pray in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, well, have a good rest of your Tuesday. I trust God will bless you in it.