New Morning Mercies #45

God’s grace will expose what you want to hide, not to shame you, but to forgive and deliver you.

“It’s a sad way to live,” I thought as I listened to him recount the events of the night before. He worked next to me on the long packing table that kept our hands busy eight hours a day. But our mouths were free to talk, and talk we did. He was being unfaithful to his wife. He thought he was in charge, he thought he was free, but he wasn’t. He told of taking his girlfriend to a certain restaurant in the small community where he lived, only to see his wife’s car parked outside. He told of going to another place but having to make sure the coast was clear before they left so they wouldn’t get caught. I said to him: “You think you’re free, but you’re not free. You have to hide. You have to worry about being caught. You have to lurk around in the darkness.” I then said: “You think I’m bound, but I’m the one who’s free. When I go out with my wife, I never have to worry about where we’re going. I never have to fear being caught. I can boldly live in the light.”

Sin turns all of us into citizens of the night. Sin causes all of us to be committed to low-light living. We hide, we deny, we cover, we lie, we excuse, we shift the blame, we rationalize, we defend, and we explain away. These are all acts of darkness by people who fear exposure.

What is the movement of grace? It is to shine light on what once lived in darkness. “And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed” (John 3:19–20). Grace shatters our darkness. Grace explodes on us with penetrating, heart-exposing light. Grace illumines our dank hallways and our dark corners. The Son of grace shines the light of his grace into the darkest recesses of our hearts, not as an act of vengeance or punishment, but as a move of forgiving, transforming, and delivering grace. He dispels our self-inflicted darkness because he knows that we cannot grieve what we do not see, we cannot confess what we have not grieved, and we cannot turn from what we haven’t confessed.

The light has come. Run to the light; it is not to be feared. Yes, it is the light of exposure, but what will be exposed has already been covered by the blood of the One who exposes it.

For further study and encouragement: John 1:1–18