How do we armor up with light?
"The night is nearly over and the day is near; so let us discard the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light." (Romans 13:12, CSB)
There are a few words in this verse that really jumped out at me when I read them recently.
The first thing was where it talks about discarding the deeds of darkness. Other translations say to put aside the deed of darkness in this verse. For me, the word discard when I read it in this translation was what stuck, rather than saying put aside. I tend to see putting aside as leaving something to come back to it later, but discarding speaks of something more permanent to me.
We should be removing the deeds of darkness from our lives for good. We discard them and they're not there for us to take back up again. They're not something we can go back to.
This isn't easy, but it's necessary. This verse goes on to say what we should take up when we discard the deeds of darkness.
We put on the armor of light. I'd never really thought about light as armor before. Light exposes and reveals, but I didn't see it as something that protects like I think of armor. Light doesn't hide anything.
But, I guess that really is armor against the deeds of darkness. These deeds depend on darkness to hide them from view, so when we take up the armor of light, we expose them for the what they really are. In this way, it does make light armor - it protects us from being deceived into doing the deeds of darkness.
To discard the deeds of darkness, we first have to allow God to point them out to us. We go His Word and we go to Him in prayer and ask Him to show us the places where we are engaged in the deeds of darkness.
Once they've been revealed, we repent of them and turn to God's ways. We choose to walk in His ways, and that means we are walking in the light. Walking in the light is how we armor up with light. We refuse to walk in the shadows, and instead choose to walk in God's ways and stay in the His light.
Where are you engaging in the deeds of darkness in your life? Are you willing to allow God to point them out?
Will you choose to walk in the light of God's truth and God's ways instead?
No comments:
Post a Comment