“This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
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“And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
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Come to God, then, my brother, my sister, with all thy desires and instincts, all thy lofty ideals, all thy longing for purity and unselfishness, all thy yearning to love and be true, all thy aspiration after self-forgetfulness and child-life in the breath of the Father; come to him with all thy weaknesses, all thy shames; with all thy helplessness over thy own thoughts; with all thy failure, yea, with the sick sense of having missed the tide of true affairs; come to him with all thy doubts, fears, dishonesties, meannesses, misjudgments, wearinesses, and disappointments: be sure he will take thee, and all thy miserable brood, whether of draggle-winged angels, or covert-seeking snakes, into his care, the angels for life, the snakes for death, and thee for liberty in his limitless heart! For he is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If he were a king, a governor; if the name that described him were The Almighty, thou mightest well doubt whether there could be light enough in him for thee and thy darkness; but he is thy father, and more thy father than the word can mean in any lips but his who said, “my father and your father, my God and your God;” and such a father is an infinite, perfect light. If he were any less or any other than he is, and thou couldst yet go on growing, thou must at length come to the point where thou wouldst be dissatisfied with him; but he is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If anything seem to be in him that you cannot be content with, be sure that the ripening of thy love to thy fellows and to him, will make thee at length know that anything else than just what he is would have been to thee an endless loss.
Commentary
by James House
God is the source of all Truth and Light, which is revealed to us through his creations, the greatest of which is his Son.
Let us approach God as he has asked us to: with humility and obedience, that we may learn of that light. And let us give Him thanks for his loving kindness which lights our way to Him.
George MacDonald wrote frequently of the light that comes to us from God:
"all about us, in earth and air, wherever eye or ear can reach, there is a power ever breathing itself forth in signs, now in a daisy, now in a windwaft, a cloud, a sunset; a power that holds constant and sweetest relation with the dark and silent world within us; that the same God who is in us, and upon whose tree we are the buds, if not yet the flowers, also is all about us—inside, the Spirit; outside, the Word. And the two are ever trying to meet in us; and when they meet, then the sign without, and the longing within, become one in light, and the man no more walketh in darkness, but knoweth whither he goeth." (from Thomas Wingfold, Curate)
"the loftiest activity of a man's being lay in prayer to the unknown Father of that being, and that light in the inward parts was the certain consequence—that, in very truth, not only did the prayer of the man find the ear of God, but the man himself found God Himself." (from Thomas Wingfold, Curate)
"Either the whole frame of existence," he said, "is a wretched, miserable unfitness, a chaos with dreams of a world, a chaos in which the higher is for ever subject to the lower, or it is an embodied idea growing towards perfection in him who is the one perfect creative Idea, the Father of lights, who suffers himself that he may bring his many sons into the glory which is his own glory." (from Thomas Wingfold, Curate)
"Having now for many years cared only for the will of God, he was full of joy. For the will of the Father is the root of all his children's gladness, of all their laughter and merriment. The child that loves the will of the Father, is at the heart of things; his will is with the motion of the eternal wheels; the eyes of all those wheels are opened upon him, and he knows whence he came. Happy and fearless and hopeful, he knows himself the child of him from whom he came, and his peace and joy break out in light. He rises and shines. Bliss creative and energetic there is none other, on earth or in heaven, than the will of the Father." (from There and Back)
"O, the love of that Son of Man, who in the midst of all the wretched weaknesses of those who surrounded him, loved the best in them, and looked forward to his own victory for them that they might become all that they were meant to be—like him; that the lovely glimmerings of truth and love that were in them now—the breakings forth of the light that lighteneth every man—might grow into the perfect human day; loving them even the more that they were so helpless, so oppressed, so far from that ideal which was their life, and which all their dim desires were reaching after!" (from The Seaboard Parish)
"the doing of duty is the shortest—in very fact, the only way into the light." (from The Seaboard Parish)
"The candle of the Lord is in man: His word lights the candle, and we see and know within ourselves and walk in the light which is within us."
"Fill my heart with thy light; let me never hunger or thirst after anything but thy will--that I may walk in the light, and light not darkness may go forth from me." (from Donal Grant)
God sends a measure of his light to all - he leaves none of his creatures in any more darkness than what they ask for. And to those who humbly ask for His light, he sends a flood of beams.
Philip Paul Bliss wrote the hymn More Holiness Give Me as a prayer, a request for more light:
More holiness give me,
More strivings within,
More patience in suff’ring,
More sorrow for sin,
More faith in my Savior,
More sense of his care,
More joy in his service,
More purpose in prayer.
More gratitude give me,
More trust in the Lord,
More pride in his glory,
More hope in his word,
More tears for his sorrows,
More pain at his grief,
More meekness in trial,
More praise for relief.
More purity give me,
More strength to o’ercome,
More freedom from earth-stains,
More longing for home.
More fit for the kingdom,
More used would I be,
More blessed and holy—
More, Savior, like thee.