2nd Week of Easter
Let The Light of Jesus
Shine Through You
Acts 5:17-26 | John
3:16-21
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Today’s
Readings
Acts
5:17-26 The
high priest and the Sadducees had the apostles arrested and thrown in jail. But
during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the prison and said,
go and take your place in the temple area and tell the people everything about
this life. At dawn, they entered the temple and taught. When the court officers
arrived to bring them from prison, the jail doors were locked, and the guards
were at their posts, but the apostles were gone. They were found teaching in
the temple.
John
3:16-21 For
God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes
in him might not perish but might have eternal life. For God did not send his
Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved
through him. The light came into the world, but people preferred darkness to
light because their works were evil. But whoever lives the truth comes to the
light so that his works may be clearly seen as done in God.
Today's
Thread: No prison holds what God has set free.
The authorities
locked the doors and posted the guards. They thought that was the end of it.
And while they were congratulating themselves, the apostles were already back in
the temple teaching. God didn't break the lock dramatically; He simply rendered
it irrelevant. And right there in John's Gospel, the most powerful verse in all
of Scripture sits quietly in the middle of a night conversation, “For God so
loved the world…” The Whole World!
Living It Today:
What feels locked
and unmovable in your life right now? A relationship, a bad habit, an
addiction, a circumstance, a fear you've been in for so long you've started
calling it home. The same God who walked the apostles out of a locked prison
before sunrise is the same God who sent His Son for the whole world, this
includes the part you are sitting in right now.
Something to sit with today:
· Are you living in the light,
or existing comfortably in the darkness?
The most
dangerous darkness is not the kind that shocks you. It's the kind that slowly
becomes familiar, bitterness that feels like justice, silence that feels like
peace, distance from God that just feels like life.
Many people are
not in open rebellion. They are simply in the shade. Close enough to remember the
light, but far enough that it no longer shines through them.
Unconfessed sin,
unforgiveness you hold tight, fear that keeps your mouth closed when God is
asking you to speak, these things don't just affect you. They block the joy and
love of Jesus from flowing through you to people who are waiting for it.
Getting back into
the light doesn't require you to have it all together first. It requires
honesty. It requires turning. It requires receiving what Jesus has already made
available to you.
The door is never
locked from His side.
So, the question
is this, not what is keeping you from God, but what are you still holding onto
that is keeping others from seeing Him through you?
Rosary Man Jim 🌹
