January 27

YELLOW SUNGLASSES

Father, thank You for bringing me to this place and this time today. I ask You to speak to me right now, and to let Your Word breathe life into my heart. Please use these next few moments to bring me to more of a fullness of You and to learn more of Your Glory and how to leave the footprints of Jesus everywhere I go today. In Jesus Name I pray. Amen!

Read John 1:1-9

In the beginning. Three words. Only 14 letters. They start both the book of Genesis and the book of John. John uses them to create a connection in the original readers and hearers mind. He wanted them to be taken back to Moses’ writing of the creation that begins with the same phrase in Genesis 1:1. It was a way to link what he is about to write to an already established authority. Doing so transfers that authority to the rest of his letter. Similarly, by using the term Word, John creates a link between the Jewish and the Gentile worlds. To Jews, this was a direct reference to God. To the Gentile or the Greek mind, this was a way to describe reason and the rational principle that governs everything in the universe. John is telling them that what they base their world on is really God, they just do not realize it, much like Paul does in Athens when he uses the statue of the unknown god to explain Jesus to the people (c.f. Acts 17:16-34). Another thing that John accomplishes by employing this term, is to position Jesus as the center of all thought and all creation.

Back during college, I was at the local mall one afternoon and walking through a store. As I glanced around, I happened to see some sunglasses with different color lenses. On a whim, I purchased two pairs, one with yellow lenses and one with blue. I thought the yellow ones were really cool, and wore them quite often the next few days. Later that same week, I was driving to visit the girl I was then dating. It was late afternoon/early evening and I had the yellow sunglasses on. I was originally driving in a northeasterly direction so the sun was behind me. When I got to the point where I had to turn north, my cool new glasses quickly became not so cool to me. The sun as it was setting, was at the right angle in the northwestern sky, to almost blind me. The view through the glasses made everything very yellow, and when combined with the sun, well it made driving difficult for the 30 seconds or so it took me to get them off. The lenses corrupted my view. After taking them off, I did not even need to put regular sunglasses on. The sun was not as bright as it had seemed just seconds earlier.

Various things can affect our worldview. Whatever troubles we have going on, or whatever is our current passion, can influence how we see and perceive things. My encouragement to you today is to let Jesus be the lens through which you see the world. Let Him be the center of all your thought and activity.

Leave His footprints as you walk today!