Monday, December 18, 2023

The Life and the Light: by Andrew Murray

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…In Him was life; and the life was the light of men.
—John 1:1, 4

He that follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.
—John 8:12

Because Christ was God, He could be the Word of God. Because He had the life of God in Himself, He could be the revealer of that life. And so, as the living Word, He is the life‑giving Word. The written Word can be made of no effect when we trust human wisdom for an understanding of it. The written Word must be accepted as the seed in which the life of the living Word lies hidden. When it is quickened by the Holy Spirit, it can become to us the Word of Life. Our communion with God’s written Word must be inspired and regulated by faith in the eternal Word, who is God.

This same truth comes out in the expression that follows: the life is the light. When we see a light shining, we know that there is a source of that light in some form. This is also true in the spiritual world. There must be life before there can be light. There can be reflected light from a dead or dark object. There can be borrowed light without life. But true life alone can show true light. He who follows Christ will have the light of life.

The one great lesson the Spirit seeks to enforce in regard to God’s Word is this: only as Scripture is received out of the life of God into our lives can there be any real knowledge of it. The Word is a seed that bears within it the divine life. When it is received in the good soil of a heart that hungers for life. It will reproduce in our lives the very life of God, the likeness and character of the Father and the Son through the Holy Spirit.

Ask the Father for the Holy Spirit to make the Word living and active in your heart. Hunger for the will of God as your daily food. Thirst for the living spring of the Spirit within you. Receive the Word into your will, your life, your joy—the life it brings will give the light with which it shines.

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