Harmony of Grace

John 12:35-36 After predicting his death, Jesus told his disciples that they "will have the light with them just a little while longer" and that they should "believe in the light while they have access to it, so that they may become children of light." There is nothing quite as challenging as navigating through an unfamiliar place in the dark before your eyes have properly adjusted. We encounter a similar challenge as we attempt to navigate our lives in this world if we choose to walk in the dark. Jesus is the light of the world. We always have access to Jesus' light living within us today. We need Jesus' light to illuminate the dark places in the world around us. Just like our eyes adjust to the dark, if we live our lives guided by Jesus' shining light, our eyes will adjust to what we are seeing and we will be able to see the world in a new perspective - through the loving eyes of Jesus. There is a famous Christian hymn called "Turn your eyes upon ...

Ephesians 2:1-10 The apostle Paul was an incredibly gifted writer. He used his words to tug on our emotions and focus on what is truly important.  After reminding us of our innate tendencies to choose darkness over light, Paul reminds us that even though we fall short of God's expectations for us, God still loves us and saves us. It is because of God's love for us, not by any work of our own, that we are forgiven and saved. This is why, no matter how many times we fail and make mistakes, we do not have to work our way back into God's favour. All we need to do is repent of our shortcoming, return to Christ, and we receive another chance; a fresh start. In our 11th devotion for this Lent season, we learnt about how, like Abraham, we are made righteous because of our faith. The danger with this understanding is that we can end up thinking that we still need to do something in order to receive God's faith - after all, having faith is doing something, right? Paul goes furthe...

John 3:18-21 I love verse 19 in our reading for today: "Light has come into the world, but people love darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil." What a fitting description of our world today.  Many people claim that the world is a horrible place; that people are evil and there is no hope for redemption.  I have a different view. There is much good and light in the world. The problem is that much of humanity chooses to love and seek darkness instead. When the Light came into the world in the form of Jesus, we were shown how to bring light into the world by living lives of mercy, peace and justice. And yet most of humanity still chooses to love darkness by living lives of resentment, violence and selfish gain. I am sure that we would all love to see a world with more light and goodness. I believe that in order for this reality to be realised, we need to live by the truths that Jesus taught: more love, more forgiveness, more grace, more peace, more giving, and mo...

Image Source:  Joshua Hibbert Today's post follows on from my previous post,  Leave A Light On . In his song with the same title, Tom Walker sings about leaving the light on for his drug-addict friend as a constant reminder that he will always be welcomed home. Here are the lyrics again: If you look into the distance, there's a house up on the hill Guidin' like a lighthouse To a place where you'll be safe to feel our grace 'Cause we've all made mistakes If you've lost your way… I will leave the light on I will leave the light on I will leave the light on I will leave the light on In my last post, I shared that God uses a similar approach to us, that no-matter how far we stray, God will always leave the light on for us as a constant reminder that we will welcome be welcomed home into God's open, loving arms. So this got me thinking... what is the church's role in all of this? While God is the one who accepts us and...

Image Source:  Johannes Plenio British singer and songwriter Tom Walker released a song last year titled  Leave A Light On. The lyrics tell a heart-wrenching story of one of Tom's friends who is a drug-addict and is losing his life to the addiction. Tom claims that he does not want to lose another friend to drugs and that no matter how dark his friend's life gets, Tom will always leave a light on to remind his friend that he is always welcome back home. If you look into the distance, there's a house up on the hill Guidin' like a lighthouse To a place where you'll be safe to feel our grace 'Cause we've all made mistakes If you've lost your way… I will leave the light on I will leave the light on I will leave the light on I will leave the light on There is such powerful imagery in this song. We all make mistakes.  We all lose our way. But no matter how far we stray or how bad our life gets, God will always leave the ...