Imagine your daughter refusing to open a Christmas present you lovingly selected and purchased at great cost. It’s wrapped in plain brown paper, so she is drawn to the more festive packages. Now she is distracted, snap chatting her gadgets and new clothes to her friends. Later, when she needs wisdom or struggles with sin, you remind her of the gift – a leather-bound Bible inscribed with her name – but she rejects it again saying, “I don’t have time to read the Bible and it’s too hard to understand,”
We do this with the Word of the Father don’t we? We sing O Come All Ye Faithful, but we don’t soak in its meaning:
Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing.
O come, let us adore Him, Christ the Lord.
Jesus – the Word – is our Father’s greatest Gift to us. He was born for us. He died for us. And the life he lived is an example for us.
A life of love and mercy.
A life of purity and power.
A life of discipline and focus.
A life of grace and truth.
Most likely, every new year’s resolution for Christians can be linked to this kind of life. All the wisdom we need is there. All the power to overcome sin and weakness is there. All of our hope and comfort are there. We simply have to come and adore Jesus so that He can light our way.
The light shines… but the darkness has not understood it.
He was in the world and the world did not recognize him.
He came to his own, but his own did not receive him.
John 1.5, 10-11
When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
John 8.12
Mary Butler Coleman 
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