December 17th Become The Light
December 17, 2023

To Become - the process of coming to be something or of passing into a state.
It is to possess the quality and character of something.

I can follow an example… But have I become an example myself?

I can follow healthy eating patterns (reduce sugar and fat, eat more vegetables), but can someone use my daily diet as a model for healthy eating?

Do I eat healthier? Or Am I a healthy eater?

The goal is to become a student that can go on to teach others and be an example.

This is what Jesus did with the Disciples… reproduce himself.

2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Jesus:
John 15:16-17 You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit–fruit that will last–and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

John 14:12 Very truly I tell you, all who have faith in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these because I am going to the Father.

John 13:34-35 ‘A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.’

Paul:
1 Corinthians 11:1-2 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.

Becoming in the Light:
Ephesians 5:8-13 (Becoming) For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord.

Additional verses for thought…

James 1:17-18 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of all he created.

Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God–this is true worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

Galatians 4:19 My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you

John 15 Vine, and the branches

1 Corinthians 2:16 ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind of Christ.

John’s prayer. That we become one as Jesus and the father of one.
Indwelling of the Holy Spirit.