Note: New Podcast Episode and Blog (link below)
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Have you seen the world lately? The pain, the division, the hardship, the anxiety, the threat of war, the evil, the darkness…

The Dark Knight trilogy of movies with Batman came to a head with the final release in 2012. People thought, ‘Oh, this is going to be fun and exciting and adventurous. Let’s get some popcorn and watch good triumph over evil.’ 

But it was way darker than many people expected. An Entertainment Weekly reporter wrote: “The Dark Knight [trilogy] has captured the unease of our times—the post-traumatic stress of so much catastrophe, the ominous dread that there’s more and maybe worse to come; the worry (and denial) that we’re handling the whole thing wrong and becoming worse for it… I’m ready to leave the dark night behind and make a better, truer future.”*

And that was over a decade ago. Think of everything that has happened since then!

But did you realize that God’s plan to deal with the darkness in our world is the grace and truth of Jesus Christ? He is the answer. He is the healing. He is the hope. He is the future. 

As his followers, not only do you and I receive the love of Christ, but we have a vocation to share it with others as well. 

When you become a follower of Jesus you “enlist” in something. When we hear that word we usually think about the army. So-and-so has “enlisted” in the armed forces. That is a helpful word to think about following Christ. We enlist as his hands and feet in a world who needs his radical grace and his radical truth.

In Romans 13:12 Paul writes: “let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Yes, like the military, it’s a battle—albeit a spiritual one. There is serious darkness; but the light is greater.

Today, don’t be discouraged by the darkness. Take it seriously, but don’t become fearful or numb. Enlist in the cause of Jesus Christ, his unshakable truth, and his radiant light.

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Notes:

–New Podcast Episode and Blog: “Short one-line prayers from the Bible to help you pray without ceasing.” Click here.
-*Quoted in: Billy Graham, The Reason for My Hope (Nashville, W Publishing Group, 2013), 158
-Bible quotes are from the ESV.