John 1:4-5 says, “In Him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness; and the darkness did not overpower it.
John 1:9 says, “There was the true light which, coming into the world, and lightens every man.”
Didn’t every person that Jesus encounter have life? Obviously, they were all alive, with the exception of the few he raised from the dead, but evidently he carried a different kind of life. As a matter fact it was so different that the very life he lived was a light to men. He did not shine a light; his life was the light. As the Son of Man, the life that he carried and released to everyone he met was the very life of the Father in him by the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Jesus said in Matthew 5:16 that we are the light of the world. We aren’t the light of the world because we belong to Him. We are the light of the world because he belongs to us and we carry His life, by the indwelling Holy Spirit, the same way he carried the Father’s life by the indwelling Holy Spirit. As he allowed the Holy Spirit to live the life of the Father through him, the life that he lived enlightened those around him; and as we allow Jesus to live his life through us by the Holy Spirit we enlighten those around us. The shining that dispels the darknes is a life lived, not a sermon preached. Sermons are great. Part of my calling is to preach sermons; but what people need is to encounter Jesus in an incarnational way when they meet Christians. The supernatural life that the Father lived through him was his testimony, and the supernatural life that Jesus lives through us, in the daily details of the routine of life, in front of those around us, is our testimony that Jesus is risen, and alive and well on planet earth.
