Daily Devotional

July 17th 2025

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THURSDAY

The Life-Light was the real thing: Every person entering Life He brings into Light. He was in the world, the world was there through Him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to His own people, but they didn’t want Him.—John 1:9-11 (MSG)

This is John’s first reference to Jesus’ incarnation. Let’s delve into that.
“What is the Life-Light?” Creation; it is the witness that creation gives to the existence, efficacy, and the majesty of God. Because He is Creator, Jesus gathers in Himself the wisdom and revelation of nature about God.
Light was personified. It came among us and stood in our midst in the person of Jesus, who demonstrated His nature by stilling the storm; by speaking to the winds and the waves and quieting them; by taking a little bread and fish and feeding thousands; by taking broken, hurting bodies and delivering them from disease; by causing the blind to see and giving strength to the limbs of those who were lame; by speaking to the dead and raising them to life.
“He was in the world, the world was there through Him, and yet the world didn’t even notice. He came to His own people, but they didn’t want Him.” John employs an interesting construction in Greek grammar. There are two different words, two different genders, used. “He came to His own” is in the neuter gender, meaning, His own things, His own place. “They didn’t want Him,” is masculine gender—His own associates, relatives, family rejected Him. This is a reference to Israel. Jesus came to the place where God had put His name, to the land that had been promised to Abraham; He came to the Temple that was dedicated to the Divine Parent; He came to those who had been instructed for centuries that there was coming One who would be our Liberator. But His own people rejected Him.
“Can the Life-Light be rejected?” Sadly, the answer is “Yes.” But, the answer is not pervasive, it’s personal. Each of us must give our own response. The darkness of sin, with its ability to hide hope and to doom destiny, is a choice that we may make, but not one that we must make. The Life-Light that is Christ is available to each of us—all of us—who will receive Him, live in Him, move in Him, have our being in Him.

Prayer: Lord God, we are often confronted with the prospect of spiritual blindness that will not permit us to see the Creator. As we go today, enable us to reject spiritual darkness and embrace the true Light that has not only come into the world, but has come into our hearts. Help us to walk in that Light, as He is the Light, that we might have fellowship with You. In the name of our Christ—our Light—we pray. AMEN!

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