Time To Turn On the Light.

What’s your favourite meal or drink? I mean the real deal, original, nothing quite like it, warms your heart, meal or drink.

As you read this blog, I want you to picture it, taste it!

My favourite coffee in the world is an Aussie “flat white”, from either Axil Coffee in Richmond, Australia, or “The Storehouse” in Mount Evelyn, Australia.

Every other coffee in the world is quite simply, inferior. It’s an imitation, to me, of the best.

I’ve been living in Orlando, Florida, for the past three months. A cup of coffee that even comes close to my Aussie favourites, is, as we say in Australia, “as rare as hens teeth!”

Nothing quite compares.

I joke that American coffee tastes like sin. Good for a moment (while it’s brewing), but once you taste it, it leaves you feeling violated. (sorry to the millions of American’s I just offended!)

But there was a time when I was more than satisfied with my American coffee. Let me take you back to 2014. My wife and I had just moved to California, from Australia. (This is our second extended time in America)

When we moved into our home in California, someone had generously bought us a coffee pot and some coffee. The brand of coffee, Folgers.

In my jet-lagged state, I Googled how to get that coffee pot brewing. I poured my Folgers coffee into the filter, sat back for a moment, and then chugged that coffee down.

It was no Aussie Flat White, but it was coffee and at the time, it was oh, so GOOD!

Now if you know coffee brands, Folgers is the cheap and nasty coffee of America. It’s what companies put in their lobbies because they “have to” have coffee, but they really don’t want to spend the money on it.

But get this, I drank Folgers for nearly 4 months before I discovered a coffee store that sold an Aussie Flat White!

I had heard that it was possible to get an Aussie coffee, but I had not discovered it for myself yet, and so I had settled for my Folgers.

I had even tasted the goodness of the Aussie Flat White back home, but I had now settled for something way less.

Why?

Because in my jet-lagged state, any coffee was better than no coffee.

There is a saying, “Bad love is better than no love.” People who stay with abusive partners are proof of this saying. It’s not that good love doesn’t exist, it’s just that in their love starved state, people will settle for the bad love in front of them, rather than going searching for the good love available elsewhere.

So it is with sin.

We settle for darkness, when light is available, because darkness tastes good when it’s all you know.

Here’s the stark truth, some of you reading this post love sin.

You love it. You want it.

You crave pornography, you enjoy pride, you delight in getting drunk, you relish in gossip and getting revenge. I’m not “having a go” at you, this is human nature.

But it is inferior to what is available in Christ’s nature and in the end it will lead to death. Let me give you another illustration.

I’ve had the priviledge and honour of assisting in cataract surgeries with my parents ministry in Indonesia.

Cataracts cause blindness, they are in short a milky filter over the eye that blocks out the light. People can live with cataracts, many can survive for years with the aid of walking sticks, canes, friends and the likes, but eventually being blind in a nation like Indonesia can kill you, most likely from an accident. Many a blind person has been hit by a car or fallen down an open drain in Indonesia.

When a cataract patient first has their bandages removed from their eyes after cataract surgery, the most interesting and then wonderful thing happens. At first, the patient closes their eyes again! They are so used to the dark and the light hurts their eyes. But then slowly the patient opens their eyes as they moves their hands in front of them and begin to feel all the things they are seeing, to test that their returned eye sight isn’t just a dream. They’ve felt the world for years, now they need to know that they can actually see.

I’ve watched as these patients have rubbed their fingers across my mothers face (who had set up their operation), and then burst into the biggest smile, for they were seeing the face of the one who gave them their sight back for the first time, not just through touch, but with their very own eyes!

When someone meets Jesus, they meet the creator and Saviour of their souls.

It can be a shock when all is exposed to the light, but then it is the greatest joy of their lives.

They move from bad love, to good love.

The move from an imitation to the real deal.

They move from darkness to light.

But first they must submit to the Master Surgeons’ hands and ask Him to remove the cataract of their soul, sin.

Sin will block you from seeing the world in the light and love that you were intended to see it in.

You have to let go of it to embrace what is possible.

Sin may have tasted good up until this point, but I’m inviting you to remember or to discover for the first time, the real deal, Jesus Christ.

Pornography can not compete with true intimacy.

Lying can not compare to the truth.

Getting drunk can not compare to the drunken state of love when you are filled with God’s Spirit.

Gossip and foul language is a mere imitation of pure praise and healing words.

The Bible says that the wages of your sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus.

If you keep living in darkness you will get hit by that bus eventually, you will fall down that drain one day or the next.

It’s time to reach out to Jesus, now. He paid the penalty or the wage of your sin, He died and rose again so that you would not have to die, but have eternal life.

The Bible also says that all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved. It is time to call on His name!

Away with the imitations, even if you enjoyed them, for they are far inferior to the perfect love of God for you.

Pour your Folgers down the drain and let God refill your cup! Ask Jesus to remove the blockage between you and His incredible face.

He loves you so much. It’s time to turn on the light.

• Andrew

PS- Do you want to give your life to Jesus or come back to Him? Pray this prayer and then please let me know you did so by either contacting me or commenting below as I want to help you flourish in your walk with God.

“Dear God, I now see that I am a sinner and that I need you to save me. I’ve been doing things my own way for too long. I ask for your forgiveness. I choose to follow you. Thank you for dying on the cross to take away the sin in my life and give me an eternal life in heaven. Please come into my life. Fill me with Your Holy Spirit that I might know your voice. In Jesus name, Amen.”