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  • Jeremy Lyzenga

Let There Be Light

By: Jeremy Lyzenga

You may listen to this devotion in audio form via podcast here.


22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. … 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.


What is it about darkness that is so terrifying? Can you remember a moment from growing up where that feeling of panic & fear began to creep in from the utter darkness alone? But it’s clearly not just a childhood fear. A 2012 survey from the U.K. found that nearly 40% of adults were afraid to walk around the house with the lights off and that 10% wouldn’t even get out of bed to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. Perhaps it's just the fear of the unknown or maybe because darkness leaves us vulnerable to whatever may be lurking in the shadows.


Biblically speaking, it makes sense that humans are afraid of the dark. In the very beginning of all time & space, Genesis 1 uses words like chaos, disorder, and darkness to show what things are like without God’s intervention. So, maybe we have good reason to fear the dark.


But then God said: “Let there be light.” And that changed everything.


God is the giver of light. We see it from his very first mandate all the way to the end Revelation. He spoke light into existence, and created order from chaos. He gave his law and sent prophets throughout the old testament, shedding light and shining the way for God’s people to come back when they wandered off into darkness. Then he sent Jesus, “the Light of the world'' full of grace and truth to deliver us from the darkness of our own sin and selfishness. And now here at the end of His story the scriptures conclude with God as the source of light once again, this time, in a renewed heavens and earth, portrayed as a magnificent city - the New Jerusalem - coming down out of heaven.


What Revelation 21 and 22 confirm is that God wants to dwell with his people. He always has. He’s a people person. And people hang out in the light. And if you see all of scripture as one big Story, you get the feeling that God just wants to hang out with those he loves. I can appreciate that. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. He dwelt among the Israelites by his presence in the tabernacle and then the temple. Jesus walked and talked and ate and hung out with all kinds of different people. Then Jesus told his disciples to stay in Jerusalem, and God sent his Holy Spirit down on the Church so that God’s presence might go with us wherever we go. And now here once again at the end of all time. God just wants to hang out with his people, but it will be different then.


There won’t be a need for a temple or a tabernacle. At the end, there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. No more night time. No more darkness at all.


The Apostle John in one of his previous letters describes God the same way he does here in Revelation when he says: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:5-7).


Light and darkness don’t go together. You simply can’t have both at the same time. So it is with your relationship with Christ and your sin. Pray that God would illuminate the darkest corners of your heart and soul, so that you can be purified from that sin and so he can dwell with you both today, and eventually one day for all eternity in the New Jerusalem.

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