Jesus and Nicodemus: Fourth of Four Illustrations

Being reborn is like turning the lights on in a darkened room.
4) light and darkness: Just as, in Genesis, God’s word divided the light from the darkness, so now Jesus, the Light of the world, came into the world and divided those who love the Light from those who embrace the darkness.

It isn’t really intellectual issues with complicated concepts that keep people from trusting in the Lord Jesus. According to this passage, the real problem is moral and spiritual blindness that keep people loving the darkness and hating the light.

Nobody really likes being shown to be wrong. That’s why it can be so hard to change. What have you been defending, and resisting changing with every last ounce of your strength? The light of God’s truth exposes what’s wrong within you and me and that truth presents a dilemma. Acknowledge we’ve been embracing sin, or change.

Verse 21 is the key

Whoever does the truth comes to the light so that it can be seen that their actions were done in God. (John 3:21)

In other words, if you are willing to begin obeying the truth, even when that means that sin will be exposed in your life, then change will take place.

This is called repentance.

When you acknowledge that something is wrong, and it has to change. This process begins with a recognition, a conviction deep inside, that something is not right in your life and you want it to be right. There is only one person Who can make it right. The Lord Jesus Christ.

In order to love the light you will have to hate the darkness

You can’t love what’s wrong and love God at the same time. You can’t love Jesus and your own sin.

The bottom line is that you and I have to pick, and what we pick carries immediate and eternal implications. To pick Jesus means coming into the light, knowing that God’s light will expose the sin in your life. There will be some painful times involved in that, in fact, the Bible describes it as being like dying. But what will really happen is that you will be freed from corruption and death, and you will have, starting now, eternal life.

Where might you be habitually choosing to scoot away from the light of God’s truth because it’s uncomfortable, and you don’t want to change? To reject Jesus means to stay in the darkness, stay under the condemnation of God’s judgement against sin, and to remain under the wrath of God, which will deal with all sin, ultimately.

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