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John 1:1-18 · The Word Became Flesh
The Light that Shines Within
John 1:1-18
Sermon
by Leonard Mann
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The story of the birth of Jesus has been variously told. Luke has told it in relation to the appearance of angels and the visit of shepherds. Matthew has told it in the context of a brightly shining star and the coming of wise men from the East. Others may very well have associated the story with other signal happenings mentioned by neither of these; for any event of importance is attended by a variety of incidental circumstances, and in telling of it, one witness will choose to relate one of the incidentals and another will relate a different one. The whole story is learned as everyone is heard.

In the New Testament it is John more than any other who undertakes to tell us what really happened at Bethlehem. He is saying that God was so loving the world that he was giving his own Son (John 3:16). And here in the prologue to the Gospel which bears John’s name we have a supreme philosophical setting-forth of that incomparable Event. The Word was becoming flesh (1:14). The light was shining into the darkness (1:5). The true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world (1:9). John does not deal at all with outward circumstance. He paints no word pictures portraying sight or sound. He writes of the inward realities of which the sights and sounds were the outward signs.

But there is no way to speak of spiritual and metaphysical reality without some use of physical image. To convey a metaphysical truth, we must choose a word picture which represents it, then paint that picture with the brushstrokes of language, and hope our listeners will be able to translate it into the meaning which we intended. And this, in a most masterful manner, John does in the prologue to this Gospel. "The light shines into the darkness!" This is the figure of speech by which John would convey to us the profound truth of what was actually happening that night at Bethlehem.

Now let’s look at what it means. "The light" - certainly this encompasses all of God’s care and good intention and love for us. The light "shines" - it is emitted, it comes forth. "Into the darkness." now what’s that? Too often we have some vague notion about some nebulous kind of darkness - out yonder somewhere - which is penetrated by a light. Not so. The darkness is within us; it is an aspect of our personhood. It is into this darkness the light comes, into this moral and spiritual shadow-land of our own minds and souls. The "light" is the very personal forthcoming of him in whom "the whole fullness of the deity dwells" (Colossians 2:9). The "darkness" is the very personal inner space of our own very human lives. It is into this darkness the light is come.

I think we are made for the light, meant for it, and it for us. It is of much interest to me to read the Old Testament book of Genesis and realize that before God said, "Let us make man," he said, "Let there be light." The indication is that he put his man into a lighted world. But somehow we got all mixed up with darkness, and our inner selves were infiltrated and flooded by it.

But let’s be careful now that we do not sell ourselves short. Much darkness as there is within us, don’t you think God saw something in us that was worth coming for? reaching for? The darkness within us conceals much that is beautiful and of precious worth. God knows the beauty and the value are there; he can see them through the shadows. And so, comes the light, that the darkness may be driven away and the beauty shine forth. So, to start with now, let’s think together about you and me, the wonderful world within us, the inner world of what we are.

We live in a wonderful world. We may look to the east and see the sunrise, to the west and see the sunset; we may listen to the song of birds and the whisper of wind. We may go out in the springtime into the orchard or the flower garden and experience life; we may smell the fragrance of lilac or the aroma of moss on a mountain rock. We may observe the seasons as they change, feel the changing moods of day and night, know the melancholy of rain, the peace of a twilight, or the expectant hush of the dawn. We may lift our eyes and look upon the stars, the vast galaxies and the deep of space. We may behold the mystery and wonder of light. We may travel to distant places and view the mighty mountains, the wide seas, the deep jungles and fertile plains and fields of growing grain. We may let our gaze sweep the earth and behold the marvels of man’s creative genius, the great structures and machines, the ships that sail the sea and air and go even where the air is not.

Yes, it’s out there - the wonderful world we live in. We may travel to see it, reach to touch it. But there is another world, the world within, the world of what we are, the world of the inner heart. It is the world of deepest hunger and longing, of highest aspiration and dream, the world of struggle and quest, the world of feelings too deep for words. It is the world where everything that has meaning must at least give account of itself.

The human body is wonderful - with its systems, checks and balances, thermostats and controls and communication devices. But it is not these of which I would speak. I speak of the world you are, not of the body you have, nor of the world in which you live, but of the world of what you are - a world of joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, the inner world where great emotions surge and ebb like ocean tides, a world of deep awarenesses where profound sensibilities are. The Old Testament psalmist declared, "I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (139:14). He was. And so are you.

When the psalmist said that, he wasn’t thinking of body parts, of stomach and lungs and pituitary glands, wonderful as all these are. He was thinking, I believe, of all that happens in the inner world in a lifetime of years. There is the rosy glow of childhood, with fancies and fairies, and the slow dawning of insight, and growing pains. There is the romance of early adulthood, reachings and yearnings, the search for identity, the realization of love and struggle. There is the adventure of the creative years; then the nostalgia of advancing age. And through it all there is laughter and there are tears and the intricate criss-cross of lights and shadows that form their ever-changing patterns over the landscape of the swiftly passing years.

Yes, it’s a wonderful world, this world within. Feeling its wonder, the psalmist in great excitement spoke to his own soul: "Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name!" (103:1). All that is within me! How much is that? We get a little glimpse here and there, a little bit of suggestion now and then. Who knows, really? Who can imagine? Remember that boy baby who was born at Hodgenville, Kentucky, on February 12, 1809? He was born in poverty, without privilege as the world measures privilege, in circumstances we tend to look on in our day as wholly dependent upon society and without productive quality.

But what was in him - that Lincoln lad? Young Abe reading borrowed books by firelight, what was in him? I doubt if any neighbor suspected or imagined. Edwin Markham wrote: "The color of the ground was in him, the smack and tang of elemental things." But there was more. I suppose no one would ever have known it was there had it not come out; but it did. Sometimes it comes out, and sometimes it doesn’t; but it’s in there - this wonderful world of the inner heart.

It’s wonderful in its capacity. There is the ability to love. All the human love that is anywhere is in there, not out there in the world of things. It’s wonderful also in its potential to be bright and beautiful or dark and dismal. And there’s nothing out there that has meaning until it means something in here. Here is the ultimate proving ground of all values. Things are of no worth in themselves. They are worthless unless they add to the world within, unless they can become instruments to add content, quality, enrichment, resources of power, and wellsprings of peace.

Thomas Gray wrote: "Many a rose blooms to blush unseen and waste its fragrance on the desert air." I believe God enjoys a rose, and every blooming rose is therefore a thing of value. But so far as we human creatures are concerned, the rose is a thing without worth unless a human spirit is able to receive and be enriched and inspired by its beauty. A treasure of sunsets, a fortune in starlight - these but pass away in waste if there is no human spirit in which they can invest themselves, and be translated into spiritual quality, and so achieve a kind of immortality. And, as everyone knows, a fortune in stocks and bonds can be a misfortune unless it can add quality and content to the inner spirit of him who has it in possession and to the inner spirits of those around him. Someone says: "We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; in feelings, not in figures on a dial; and we should count time by heartthrobs."

I have been trying to illustrate for you the immense dimension and importance of the wonderful world of inner spirit. Now let me say: it is into this world that the light shines. God knows where his light is needed most - and where it will do the most good, where it will make the most difference. So he beams his light into our darkness, revealing the beauty that is there.

I wish to say two or three things about the coming and presence of the light. And the first one is: It is in this light that we should see our own life. I strongly feel that one reason that light is come is to illuminate our own view of what we are. Many times it makes an important difference in what light we see things. Physically, we can illustrate this in a wide variety of ways.

My wife and I visited one of the famous caverns of America. There, deep beneath the earth’s surface, time and nature had carved spectacular formations of artistic design and beauty. As we stood watching these, the light upon them changed, moving through a series of colors and combinations. As the light changed, the formations appeared to change also. In one light they were witches’ castles, eerie and shadowed; but in another light they were like great temples gleaming in the sun. Perhaps you have seen cave illumination of this kind, and perhaps, too, you have seen a delicately beautiful show called Dancing Waters. The performers are simply streams and sprays of water jettisoned upward and outward from a series of nozzles. An enchanting effect is produced by the varied coloring and slanting of the lights that play upon them.

A few years ago, while on a church mission in southern California, I was driven by a friend after dark to the home of some fine folks who were to be my host and hostess for a few days. In the darkness I knew the road we traveled had climbed somewhat; but it was not until the morning sun drove away the darkness that I could see where I was - on an inspiring hilltop, with an orange grove for a front yard, overlooking the city of Camarillo and a wide expanse of the Pacific ocean. Yes, light makes a fantastic different.

In what light do you see your life, yourself? Your doorbell rings; you open the door; and before you stands a man of disheveled appearance who is asking you for a "buck" so, as he says, he can buy a sandwich. His whole life perspective is limited to one immediate problem: Where is his next meal coming from? He is not interested in the sunset which gleams golden in the west behind him. He is unaware of the tulips that bloom there by his feet. He is not at all impressed with the heights and ranges and reaches of mind and spirit. He sees all there is of his life in the light of the hunger pain he feels in his stomach. I well remember the time such a man approached me on a Cincinnati street and said the usual thing: "Mister, can you spare a dime?" That was before inflation and certain other changes after which such people usually ask for dollars rather than dimes. My response to this man was: "My friend, is it a dime you really need?" In my heart I was saying to him: Is it a dime you deeply want? Will a dime solve your problem? Will it fulfill your life? It is enough? And then I said to him, "Why don’t you ask for a million dollars?" Of course, that wouldn’t have solved his problem either; I knew that, and so did he - I think. Life is sometimes seen in a tiny pinpoint of light, and that very dim.

A woman in a hospital with a pain in her side is facing surgery tomorrow. She is prone to see all of life in the light of that immediate circumstance. She is likely to forget the immeasurable value of the love with which she is surrounded. She may not be aware of all the good things life has brough to her up to this time; it may seem to her now that never in her life has she ever seen a golden sunrise. And the little pinpoint of light in which she sees things is just not big enough or bright enough. I observe a man’s picture in the newspaper. He is a billionaire. His face is a mask, the unreadable face of the proverbial poker player. The word is that he has this week swallowed up another giant corporation. I look at his picture with a mixture of anxiety and pity. He may be a broad and deep and balanced man; but I somehow doubt if he is. He is very likely to see his life only in the light of an impassioned craving for more, to see himself only as a juggler of dollar signs and a manipulator of people.

The wife and small son of a certain storekeeper sat by a window one evening looking at the stars and talking about heaven. The little fellow asked his mother, "Will I go to heaven?" She said, "Yes." And the boy said, "Will you?" and she replied that she would, too. There was a long silence; and then the child said, "But Daddy won’t, will he?" "Why?" his mother replied, "Why do you say that?" And the little one sadly answered, "Because Daddy won’t be able to get away from the store." O yes he will - he’ll get away from the store all right. The time will come; he’ll get away, there’s no question about that. But even the child knew something about his dad: that he was living in a narrowly limited portion of himself. The man was seeing his life in a pathetic little pinpoint of light, and he wasn’t seeing all of it.

Well, of course we all see our life in the light of something. And often that light is not big enough, bright enough, good enough, or total enough. Many dim views of life are going around; for many are the people who do not see life in a light that is at all clear. To some, life is simply biological; man is just an animal, a beast - resourceful and imaginative, but a beast nonetheless. To some, life is futile, without point, purpose, or goal. To some, life is a pre-determined product of circumstance and nothing more. But Jesus said, "Your life is more than" you thought it was. And, my friend, usually it is. So, in the coming of the light, God is doing something about this: He is trying to help us see.

Now listen to one of the great passages of Holy Scripture; listen to what God has done, and what God intends. These words are from Paul’s second letter to Timothy, chapter one: "Never be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord ... It is he who brought us salvation, and called us to a dedicated life, not for any merit of ours, but of his own purpose and grace, which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity, but has now at length been brought fully into view by the appearance on earth of our Savior Jesus Christ. For he has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel" (2 Timothy 1:8-10).

"Brought life and immortality to light through the gospel!" Normally, we say something is "brought to light" when it is brought up out of concealment and set in clear view. A fact is brought to light in a court hearing. A situation is brought to light by a piece of news reporting. Well, the Scripture says that life has been brought to light. Through the gospel, through the good news, life has been brought up from where we had it buried. We had buried it beneath an overgrowth of things, beneath our preoccupation with small ideas and unworthy values. We had wrapped it in trifles, but he would clothe it with immortality. We had bludgeoned it down into the dark, but he would bring it up to the light.

You know that I could spend the rest of the day illustrating how, for many people, life is buried in the darkness. Permit me to cite just two or three such illustrations. You know that millenniums ago they buried the bodies of the ancient dead with their trinkets beside them; but in California a little while ago, at his request, they buried the body of a rich industrialist in a tuxedo with a monkey wrench in his hand. On another side of the problem, one said, "My life is without point or purpose, a dizzy whirl centered around nothing." And another: "My life is an enslaving chain of futility; and every new experience is another link added to the chain." Once I heard the inimitable Dr. George Buttrick say: "The man who runs from woman to woman and gets pie-eyed in the tavern is trying to reduce life to the animal level, and perhaps that’s what sin is."

There came out recently a popular-type of song which might very well be a part of a present-day Rubaiyat. The theme: Is that all there is? The female singer describes a childhood experience in which she sees a house fire destroy a home. Then she sings, "I said to my father, Is that all there is to a fire? She saw the circus, and having seen it, said, "Is that all there is to a circus?" Later, in adulthood, she came, presumably, into the experience of loving a man and being loved by him, and she said, "Is that all there is to love?" After each of the questions comes the refrain: "Is that all there is to that? Then let’s keep dancing; break but the booze and let’s have a ball." This is, of course, one way of dealing with disappointment, one way of reacting to reality. But not a good way. Is that all there is? No. There was more that she never saw. Yes, life can get terribly buried down in the murky deeps where it’s dark.

But don’t ever forget it: Christ has brought life up to the light through the gospel. Try to see your life in that light. If you can, you will see it whole, you will see all of it. For here in the gospel is a piece of good news which makes a mighty difference, powerful, dynamic.

Let me tell you a story, a very personal one, if I may. One year just before Easter I was burdened with work, weighed down with responsibility, beset with difficulty - or so I thought. I was bone weary and mentally tired. In this condition I went one day alone into a room to preview a motion picture film on the resurrecton of Jesus. Sitting there in the dark, I watched the familiar episodes of the drama unfold. But I was only half seeing, half hearing. Then there on the screen was the Apostle Thomas in prison telling his prison mates about it - Thomas, devoted follower of Christ, now facing death because he was. And suddenly, and so very unexpectedly, it came over me that all the problems which chafed and burdened me were swallowed up in a glorious victory. There I saw in the light of this vast, sweeping perception of life that no ordeal of circumstance can ultimately matter much. I walked out of that room that day with wings on my feet.

But you don’t get his view of life unless you see it in the big, bright light. Some things you never find out if you always take a worm’s-eye view of what you are. It takes a different view to know that "though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day" and that "these momentary afflictions are working for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison" (2 Corinthians 4:16-17). Sometimes we are so involved with our problems that we don’t see enough of life even to be thankful for being alive. Imagine the shock of one man who said to his friend, "That’s an awful cough you’ve got," when his friend answered, "Maybe so, but down at the morgue this morning I saw half a dozen fellows who’d like to have it!" When you can see life in the full dimension of all it is, then, no matter what the problems are, you’re glad you’re alive. And the best way I know to see life full-size is to see it in the light of the gospel of Christ, in the light of his coming and presence.

This brings us, I think, to the second thing I would like to say. It is this: Not only should we see our life in his light, but we should also live our life in the light in which we see it. Life is to be lived. There are things to do, places to go. There is a journey to be made. There are steps to be taken. Concerning the coming of Christ into the world, John said that "the light was shining into the darkness" and "the true light which enlightens ... was coming." Then thirty years after his coming, Jesus himself was saying, "I am the light of the world" (John 3:12). He was speaking of the same world John was - the world within, not some nebulous, vague something-or-other out yonder somewhere, but the real world of the inner us. He knew that in the final sense every man’s walk is made within, and every choice is an inward choice. So our Lord puts his light where it belongs. To borrow from the language of our space age, he would illuminate our guidance mechanism.

Jesus says, "He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 3:12). He says, "You have the light; believe in it" (John 12:36). He knows we need it. We don’t have enough light of our own. The Old Testament prophet also knew this and said it this way: "You who kindle a fire and encircle yourselves with sparks, and walk in the light of your own fire and of the sparks which you have kindled, you shall lie down in sorrow" (Isaiah 50:11). As we make the journey of a lifetime, we need a light beyond what we ourselves can generate. And the gospel is saying that in Christ we have that light - available within us. I have already tried to say that, seeing ourselves in this light, we can discover what we are, can see our life wholly, as what it is. Let me now go on to say that we may - and should - do our living of life in harmony with what, in his light, we have discovered our life to be.

Living with due regard to what we are - this is what we should be doing. Apparently people who live like animals have not yet discovered their own humanity. They grab and grasp and claw like animals. They take food like animals - with never a word of thanks. They take sex like animals - wherever it is available. They push and shove like animals - no matter who gets hurt. Their life expression is physical and biological as though there is nothing more. But there is something more; and we need to make this discovery.

A kid with pimples is playing about the neighborhood; but a new family moves in next door, and there is a lovely girl in the family, and this neighborhood kid suddenly discovers that he is a man. It would be too bad, wouldn’t it, if he should go all the way to the end of his years and never make that discovery.

A man has long been preoccupied with his days at the office, his Saturdays on the golf course, his evenings puttering about his garage or his lawn, his Sunday morning sleep-ins, and his Sunday afternoons with the ball games - and then comes the message that his wife, whom he truly loves, but to whom he has never said much about his love, has been critically hurt in a terrible automobile crash, is lying unconscious in a hospital emergency room, and it is gravely uncertain whether her heart will beat again or she will take another breath. This man very abruptly discovers dimensions of his own being that he had never known were there. And it would be too bad, wouldn’t it, if he should never make that discovery.

In the light of new circumstance, we can learn many things we never knew before. One may draw half a dozen straight lines on paper which, when seen, appear to be only a flat design having length and breadth. But a messenger comes and says, "Look again; look for something else." Then, as the viewer does this, all at once the flat thing becomes a cube, there is the dimension of depth, a dimension unseen before. The difference is made by the appearance of the messenger who says, "Look again."

Something of this kind our Lord Christ does for us. There was Matthew, collector of taxes, narrow, routine-minded opportunist, who never understood how big and broad life is until Jesus got to him; and then he did. There was Mary Magdalene, woman of the streets, beaten, broken, life narrowed down until it was almost at dead end, who never knew how rich and good life really is until she met Jesus; but then she did. There were those fishermen of Galilee, good fishermen, who knew how to row a boat, set a sail, tell about the weather, mend nets, and catch fish, who never quite understood that life is more than fishing until Jesus came and called them out from what they were into what they could become. And don’t you see: Matthew and Mary and those fishermen all have one thing in common - after they met Jesus they began to live in new dimensions of their being.

In his letter to the Ephesians the Apostle Paul writes concerning the sort of context in which our life is cast and the kind of potential life has. His exulting words: "I pray God ... according to the riches of his glory, that he will grant you to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints, what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you might be filled with all the fullness of God" (3:14-18).

O how gloriously true, my friend - we live in vast dimensions of goodness and power, of meaning and love. We can range across broad spaces of thought and feeling. But too much we make prisoners of ourselves, as though we had tethered ourselves to a stake somewhere with a very short rope. Would you like to be somebody special? Well, you are. Each of us is - somebody special to God. Read John 3:16 again: "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." See yourself in the light of that; put yourself in that picture; think of yourself as a part of that world, the world he so loved. And I would say that that is being someone rather special. Then live in the light of this. I know of no better starting place for living than at what I shall call Realization-point One, the point where we realize who and what we really are.

There is yet another aspect of our living in the full brilliance of our Lord’s illumination of our life. It is the important matter of our living in the light of God’s availability. One thing that the coming of Christ is saying to us is that no human person of faith and good will need ever walk alone any more. He is "Immanuel" - God with us. The prophet Zephaniah said to the people of his time, "The Lord your God in the midst of you is mighty, and he will save you" (3:17). With the coming of our Savior he is in our midst as never before. Do you remember the Old Testament story of the three Hebrew men who were thrown by the irate king into the fiery furnace at Babylon? Next morning when the king looked in, he saw not only the three of them standing among the flames, but there with them he saw also "the form of the fourth" and he said that form was "like the Son of God" (Daniel 3:25). If I may for a moment employ that soul-stirring phrase, let me say that the "form of the fourth" may sometimes be but dimly seen in the fiery furances of our life, but he is there.

Sometimes we complain that God is not observed doing anything spectacular. Why, we say, Moses saw a burning bush - why don’t we? Well, the answer may be because the bush we see is blooming instead of burning - and the blooming of a bush may very well be a greater wonder than the burning of one. But, someone says, God spoke to Moses from the bush that burned. Yes, I know; and I strongly suspect he is speaking to us from the ones that bloom. The very orderliness of God’s universe is quite often mistaken for his absence. The Lord Christ, by his coming, is letting us know this: God has made himself available.

Live in the light of this. If you are doing the right things, there’s nothing you have to do alone. If you are going the right places, he’ll be in every step you take, and although you may falter, he will not. When you fall, he will be there to pick you up again. When you are weary, he will be strong. And when you must stop for sleeping, you can trust him to stay awake and to be there to take your hand again when the morning light calls you to go on.

Let me tell you now about a third aspect of our living in the light. We may - and should - live in the light of what we may become. Read again the prologue to John’s Gospel: He who is the light is come; he is come unto his own; his own did not receive him - hut (nevertheless, notwithstanding, in spite of this fact) all who receive him, who believe in his name, to them he gives power to become children of God.

Here is an exciting fact: we do not always have to be what we are. God gives the ability to become. This is a truth with many facets. Lincoln was a child of poverty, of a humble family, in the American backwoods, but he could become the stalwart statesman who saved the American union. George Frederick Handel was an unknown Prussian who seemed to have everything weighted against him, but he could become the skilled creator of the mightiest of all oratorios, The Messiah. Saul of Tarsus was an intemperate and bitter enemy of the Christian Faith, but he could become the most powerful champion of that Faith the world has yet known.

A second exciting fact is this: resident in the human breast is a built-in urge to become. As poet Harry Kemp writes, God "has put an upward reach into the heart of man." Sometimes people squelch the urge, brutally bludgeon it and beat it down. Sometimes they pervert it, distort it, and send it off in directions it was never meant to go. But God knows the urge is there. The story is told of a sculptor who worked many weeks on a block of marble, carving a bust of Lincoln. The delightful black lady who was employed to clean and care for his studio watched the process day after day as the head, shoulders, and facial features of Lincoln gradually emerged. Then, when the bust was almost finished, she said to the sculptor, "How come you knew Mr. Lincoln was in that block of marble?" Well, a sculptor knows nothing about marble that God doesn’t know about us. He knows what’s in there. He knows what we can become.

Michelangelo was walking with a friend along the street of an Italian city when they came upon a block of stone left by the workman from a construction project. The master of hammer and chisel paused, walked around the stone, looked at it carefully, touched it here and there, and said, "There is an angel in that stone, and I must bring it out." God knows about stones and angels, and he is forever working to bring the angels out. I repeat: He knows what we can become.

I suppose there are some things some of us cannot become, because of the limitations of our ability. I doubt if I could ever become a great musician or painter. In achievements such as these, each of us can become only his own best, his own most. Each can rise only to his own ceiling. But how high is this? Probably higher than most of us think. Each can range only to the end of his own tether. But how far is this? Probably much farther than most of us suppose. When Grandma Moses was seventy, it may have been assumed that her life was almost done. Not so. After that she became one of the most widely known landscape painters of her time. Winston Churchill was 65 and retired, and it may have been assumed that that was that. But it was after that when the indomitable Winnie answered the desperate call of his embattled country and became one of the most effective leaders England ever had.

Well, it is quite possible you may not become (although you may) another Winston Churchill or Grandma Moses, and maybe I will not become a Beethoven or a Michelangelo. But let me tell you something. Whatever your age, your limitations, your struggles, problems, health, background, or status, I point you to a wide open door, to a high-road that leads on, to summits with unlimited horizons; and I announce to you that the most wonderful privilege of power anyone may ever have is yours, that whatever else you may or may not become, this you can: a child of God. "As many as receive him, to them gives he power to become." And this includes you.

Some other person may begin life as a prince, born in a palace, having position and wealth, because he is a son of a king. You, although humbly born to poverty and problem, hindered by struggles, temptations and sins, can end your life as a prince (or princess) because you have become a child of The King. And there is no higher privilege or honor or position than this. Others may strive to become this or that; but you, receiving Christ, are given the power to become the best that any human person can ever be.

Some things must always be essentially what they are. The pebble by the roadside is just a stone; time and weather may change its shape a little, but it is still just a stone. But not so with you - this creature of divine design and plan; you can change. If God’s man can fall as he did and does, he can also climb. If he could reach for the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, he can also reach for the hand of God. If he can sin, he can also repent. If he can wander away as a prodigal, he can also come home. You can become! Here is life’s most exciting fact. Never forget it; never lose it among the rubble of lesser things. Live in the light of this.

And know that you and I are incomplete until we have become what we are meant to be. We are created as creatures of God, and the creative work is not finished until we have become "new creatures in Christ Jesus." Our life remains unfulfilled while we have the capacity to become and are not becoming. Tragic and pathetic is the waste of powers not used, of resources untapped. Do you remember the story of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus seeking light for his way? Do you remember that, unwilling to turn loose and let go in response to the invitation of Christ, he went away sorrowfully? Phillips Brooks said of this young man: "His soul was like a tall, strong ship, but tied fast with a long rope. It was able to struggle up channel past headland and light and buoy that marked the way, but always something held it back from laying itself at rest beside the golden shore." Our life urges it upon us, that we live in the light of what we may become.

Some things you may become only for a little while; some achievements are so very temporary. Become physically strong, and time will wrest away your strength. Become materially rich, and death will take the riches all away. But become a child of God, and this you can be forever.

CSS Publishing Co., Inc., Stars You Never Saw Before, by Leonard Mann