Seeing The Son

He is the radiance of the glory of God...
Hebrews 1:3

On labor day weekend, some of my friends and I went to Yosemite to hike Half Dome. We didn’t originally plan to but somehow we ended up starting our hike at like 2:30am. It was a full moon that night so the sky was pretty well lit. But even with a full moon, we still needed flash lights for four hours until the sun came up because no matter how much light the moon provided, it wasn’t enough. And even with flash lights, I can tell you without any hesitation that it was much easier to hike that trail after the sun came up than it was for us to hike without the sun. I was so happy when the sun came up not only because was it hard to see without the sun, but it was cold without the sun. With the sun as my light, my hike was significantly better in more than one way.

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
John 8:12

It doesn’t matter who you are. Without Jesus as the sun at the center of your life, you’re walking in total darkness. And you’re probably in the cold too. At best, you’re walking around with only a flash light. And there’s something else that I didn’t tell you about those first four hours of our hike when we had to use our flash lights. No more than an hour and a half into the hike, my flashlight went out. I had light one moment. And then in a moment my light was gone. And no matter what I tried I couldn’t get it to come back on. You don’t want to live your life in dependence on the cheap flashlights of human wisdom that are dependent on batteries and will eventually go out. Some of you might have the flashlights you’re using go out tomorrow. But the light of Jesus will never go out and shines ten thousand times brighter than the best flashlight you can buy. And best of all, it’s free.

An excerpt from the message I preached at the large group meeting for the InterVarsity fellowship at San Jose State University. You can read the whole message here.