Leaving the Land of Lies: Choosing Jesus, the Light of Life
- Jack Selcher
- Mar 7, 2024
- 3 min read
Updated: Jan 25
Summary
Jesus is the light that the world resists, yet darkness cannot overcome Him. The world system, sinful nature, and the devil promote lies that glorify self, deny truth, and empty life of meaning. Modern and postmodern thinking both fail to satisfy. Christianity offers a God-centered life grounded in truth, purpose, and transformation, calling believers to trust, obey, love, and live for God’s glory rather than the world’s applause.
Choosing Jesus, the Light of Life
Jesus is the bright morning star (Revelation 22:16). He came to light the earth. His arrival bathed everything in a penetrating, holy light, but most hated or ignored it. They preferred the dark land of lies. They still do (John 3:20). The superstructure of darkness controls them. By contrast, Christians choose Jesus, the Light of Life.
Escaping the Superstructure of Darkness
We don’t have to live in the gloomy land of deceiving and being deceived. Let’s move toward the light because Jesus alone is the way to a purposeful life. He alone is the truth in a world that doesn’t value it or Him. Only He offers life to people like us who were without a pulse, spiritually dead in trespasses and sins (John 14:6, Ephesians 2:2).
“The Word gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it” (John 1:4-5 NLT). Jesus is that Word (John 1:14).
Jesus’ light beams truth into our coal bin at midnight world that’s naturally receptive only to the three voices of the world system, the sinful nature, and the devil. The world lies to us—a lot. Its scheme to overcome us is dark, deceptive, and dangerous.
The Three Voices That Shape the World
Paul commands us not to let that oppressive darkness and those lies shape us into ongoing rebels against God’s will and ways (Romans 12:2). Like a spiritual black hole, these three voices seek to absorb all the glory that belongs to God alone (Isaiah 42:8).
The Apostle John commands us not to love the vile way of living that excludes God (1 John 2:15). Conforming to it or loving it means we’re sinning and disobeying God (Ephesians 2:2).
We began life as citizens of the kingdom of lies. We’ve foolishly followed our sinful nature’s self-centered, self-glorifying demands. The world's understanding of life radically opposes the Creator’s purpose. How so?
What the Dark World Glorifies
The dark world glorifies physical beauty, status, wealth, power, and achievements as the measuring tools of significance. It says this life is all there is. Death is the final period at the end of the sentence of life. If we expect the world to honor us, we must go after those four with the accelerator to the floor. No one else will do it for us. Nothing matters more than a name people remember and gaining the world’s applause. It’s the sure way to happiness.1
Of course, becoming well-known and winning the world’s applause isn’t a can’t-miss road to happiness. Wikipedia lists the names of hundreds of 21st-century celebrities who were so unhappy that they took their own lives.2 They believed the lie that becoming somebody would make them happy. They did. It didn’t.
Modern Lies and Postmodern Despair
Modernism and postmodernism are strands of world system deceit, even though the second is a reaction against the first. Modernism elevates reason to the throne as the ultimate problem solver.
Cause and effect relationships explain everything. People are good. Science will create a better world and bring people happiness. Life is easier now, but postmodernism rightly concludes that easier doesn’t make people happy.
Postmodernism pulls out the foundation stones of modernism. It rejects objective truth, the trustworthiness of any authority, and any meaning in life.3 Only what works counts. No moral code binds its adherents. Since life is senseless, only play matters.
A God-Centered Way of Life
By contrast, Christianity is God-centered. What the Bible says, God says to us. What He says is the truth. He is the ultimate authority. Life is about glorifying His name, not our own, and achieving His purpose.
We must trust (Hebrews 11:6), obey (John 14:15), love Him and others (Matthew 22:37-39), serve Him (1 Samuel 12:24), and become more like Him (Romans 8:29). As excelling in many sports requires keeping one’s eye on a ball, that is the ball on which Christians must focus. Read about the sinful nature's opposition.
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