Do we use the light we have?

We despised him and rejected him—a man of sorrows, acquainted with bitterest grief. We turned our backs on him and looked the other way when he went by. He was despised, and we didn’t care. Yet it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God, for his own sins! (Isaiah 53:3-4 TLB)

Albert Pike said, "We have all the light we need, we just need to put it in practice." Light came into the world, but the world rejected it almost as though they didn't need light to survive! Even a blind man will tell you without light on someone's part, the things he enjoys so much would not have been created for his use. The things he relies upon for his safety, such as audio cues at the crosswalk, braille lettering on the elevator buttons, and even the knowledge others have that a red-tipped white cane signals a visual deficit on the part of the one carrying it are all part of what was created 'in the light'. If a physically blind man benefits from what light has created, how is it we would think our spiritual blindness wouldn't benefit from the most perfect light? Light comes in many forms, but only one 'form' lasts an eternity. It is that light which so many reject, assuring a very dark and treacherous course into eternity. It wasn't his eternity in light he was assuring on that cross - it was ours! Our grief - our sorrows - our sin...these he bore so as to give us each light beyond all our understanding. 

The leaders who voted in favor of executing Christ that day had no idea what they set in motion - they never really stopped to consider what their own prophets had written years before, as a reminder of how the Messiah would die and what would be accomplished in his death. Had they have listened to their own prophets of the ages, they might have recognized there was something within Christ that bore witness to the truth of all ages and brought light wherever he went. What was set in motion at the cross has never been truly 'finished' because all that the cross did to deal with our grief and sorrow and sin goes on and on into eternity. It is never-ending light and it remains consistent even when other things seem to want to mask it.

If Pike was correct, and I think he might just be, we are all without excuse for not moving into that light! We only experience as much light as we immerse ourselves in, my friends. We don't produce the light, but we allow the light to produce within us the radiance of that light until light replaces every area of darkness within. Grief and sorrow are inward 'issues' or emotions - yet they have an outward effect. The light of God's grace doesn't just deal with outward stuff - it works to bring health to those areas of our deepest need - those areas where we get bogged down in our own misery, sometimes even without our own knowledge of just how heavy that burden has become. Sin produces deep, inward pain. Light produces deep, inward peace. I don't know about you, but I'd rather know the benefits of Light than the results of my sin. Just sayin!