This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light and there is no darkness in him at all.

1 John 1:5

I love the image of God as light.  Why?  Because light is more powerful than darkness.  If some place is dark, you can shine light and make it brighter.  But if some place is light, you can’t shine darkness into it to make it darker.  There is no way to make anything darker except by diminishing the light.  Light can overpower dark, but darkness has no effect on light.

In our lives, if we have darkness it isn’t because the darkness has overpowered the light, but it is because we have moved farther away from the light.  If we struggle in darkness it is because we have moved away from the light.  But thanks be to God that we can turn again to Christ and He will shine anew in our lives!  God is light and He wants to shine His light into the darkness of our lives!

Rejoice greatly, O people of Zion! Shout in triumph, O people of Jerusalem! Look, your king is coming to you. He is righteous and victorious, yet he is humble, riding on a donkey– even on a donkey’s colt. I will remove the battle chariots from Israel and the warhorses from Jerusalem, and I will destroy all the weapons used in battle. Your king will bring peace to the nations. His realm will stretch from sea to sea and from the Euphrates River to the ends of the earth.

Zechariah 9:9-10

The crowds may have thought that Jesus was the Messiah, but they certainly didn’t expect this.  The Messiah was a mighty warrior, a king who would lead the nation into triumph over their oppressors and victory over those who had held them in bondage.  The messiah was to bring restoration to the nation and rule with a strength that guaranteed peace.  But that wasn’t who Jesus was and is.  When they saw Jesus on a donkey on what we call Palm Sunday they expected Him to usher in a new earthly kingdom, and when he didn’t they turned against Him.

We all have twisted expectations of God.  We expect God to be on our side when we are in a disagreement with another.  We expect God to bless us even if we are not a blessing to others.  We expect God’s forgiveness to come without painful results.  But that’s not who God is or how God works.  Reading scripture allows us to see a fuller picture of a God who is honest, true, and loving – full of both grace and justice.  God is perfect, even if our understanding of Him is not.

People ask, “Why should we read scripture?”  I think one of the best reasons is to understand God.  When we see who God really is we can understand more of God’s call on us to live holy lives.

When this letter from King Artaxerxes was read to Rehum, Shimshai, and their colleagues, they hurried to Jerusalem and forced the Jews to stop building.  The work on the Temple of God in Jerusalem had stopped, and it remained at a standstill until the second year of the reign of King Darius of Persia.   At that time the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied in the name of the God of Israel to the Jews in Judah and Jerusalem.  Zerubbabel son of Shealtiel and Jeshua son of Jehozadak responded by beginning the task of rebuilding the Temple of God in Jerusalem. And the prophets of God were with them and helped them.

Ezra 4:23 – 5:2

Some of you may know that I have a golden retriever named Prince Zerubbabel, whom we call Zeeb.  I named his this because I love the name and I love the story of Zerubbabel.  There is quite a story in the rebuilding of the temple.  The Israelites were passionate about seeing it built, but not everyone in the area wanted to see it happen.  In fact, those that opposed it took strong measures to prevent it from happening.  But Zerubbabel continued to build because he was following God’s command, not man’s.

Sometimes our faith will put us in difficult circumstances.  The world will tell us to ignore our faith or set is aside for some gain.  It isn’t always easy to obey God when the world is telling us otherwise.  Sometimes it means taking a stand against the world.  But we can gain strength in knowing that we are not alone.  God is with us and is watching over us.  And it is God that will protect us when we stand for Him.

So think clearly and exercise self-control. Look forward to the special blessings that will come to you at the return of Jesus Christ. Obey God because you are his children. Don’t slip back into your old ways of doing evil; you didn’t know any better then. But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God– who chose you to be his children– is holy. For he himself has said, “You must be holy because I am holy.

1 Peter 1:13-16

They say that one of the definitions of addiction is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.  If this is true (which I believe it is), then let’s face the fact that we are addicted to sin.  Our life of faith is a continual struggle with doing the things that we know are right and good and doing those things that we know are bad and harmful to us and to others.  Why do we do what we do?  Why do we struggle so much?  It’s a question even Paul had in his life (Romans 7).  What we want to do, we do not do, but the evil that we do not want to do, this we do.

Friends, as much as we want to just write this off and say this is life, that’s not what we are called to do.  Peter reminds us to practice self-control and to think clearly.  We must live life looking forward to the blessings from Christ.  We know the difference that a life in Christ can make.  It’s time for us to start living a holy life because the God we serve is holy.