Cuando no puedes ver la luz | Crossroads en Español

Hey, welcome to Crossroads, I'm Victor Martinez, and whether you're arriving here for the first time or you've grown up in a church or you're exploring honestly and you're not sure about who Jesus is, we are very happy that you are here with us, because during the next few weeks we will be entering into some of the most intense, personal, and provocative statements that Jesus made about himself. The statement is, I am. And these are not nice phrases for a cup or an Instagram post, no. Jesus said things like, I am the light of the world, I am the good shepherd, I am the way, the truth, and the life. These are huge affirmations, and honestly, if Jesus really is who he said he was, that changes absolutely everything. That can change your life. We all know what it is to walk in the dark. I don't have to explain it to you. Confusion, fear, anxiety, or feeling lost. But Jesus declares something bold. He not only brings light, he is the light. Today, we will explore what it means to follow Jesus in the midst of darkness and find in him clarity, hope, and true life. No matter where you are spiritually, our hope is that you not only listen to these words and move forward. We want you to think about them, to fight with them, to ask honest questions about Jesus, who you are. Because perhaps the question is not only, what did Jesus say? Perhaps the real question is, why can his words impact me today? And if there is more truth, more depth, and more invitation to the words of Jesus than we imagine, then it may be that our lives may be impacted and be different. So, as long as we listen to the message together, wherever you are, we are very happy that you are here. Hello everyone, I am Ali. It is a pleasure to be with you this weekend here at Crossroads. Yes, we have been exploring Jesus in the context of these statements he made about himself, but we have done it in the environment of a museum. Do you see the museum behind me? And I don't know how you go through museums, but I will admit that when the creative team proposed the idea of the museum, it was a little confusing for me because I am the one who rushes through the museum in 30 minutes and goes through the gift shop when leaving. Do you know what I mean? So I say, that is beautiful, incredible, so incredible, and I finish, can we go now? So when they talked about a museum, I said, okay, connect the dots for me. And the whole idea behind this series is that these statements, some of which we are quite familiar with, like the one we will do today, it is really worth preserving them. It is worth coming and seeing. Is there still something here for me? Is there life here? Can I get something? He came back again, and the best museums preserve the things that achieve that, and people still come back again and again to get the life that is still in that place today. Today we will see, I am the light of the world, it is one of the statements Jesus made about himself in John chapter 8. Before we begin, let us pray to receive the life that is in that name today. Lord, that is what I pray that you do here. I pray that you help me to communicate your word clearly. Open our minds and hearts to receive the life that you have for us in that name. In the great name of Jesus I pray. Amen. Well, light is something curious. Light can be many things. On Friday I went downtown after a baseball game of the Reds to see fireworks. I love fireworks. One of my favorite types of lights, and I had the opportunity to see something I had never seen before. Have you seen the drone shows? I didn't even know this existed until Friday night. Hundreds of drones in different lights, choreographed in the sky, doing different forms on the stadium. It was crazy. It was really incredible.

That day was the first day of my life that I knew there was something called a drone show. You are laughing, but we invent new forms of light, new expressions of light all the time. So, what light did Jesus mean when he said this? Because here at Crossroads we talk a lot about light. If you are in one of our spaces, maybe you are not seeing us online. But if you are in one of our buildings, where you are sitting, it is dark. And that is completely intentional. At Crossroads, we have learned that people like to have a space where they can approach God at their own pace, without feeling that they are being observed. Where you can be exactly who you are. It's like me, the first five times I came, you sat in the last row, you cried and you left before anyone could see you. That's the security we want to create with the lack of light. But that's what makes this declaration of Jesus so interesting, right? The same place, the same people, the same environment, the same service. A totally different reality. Some are looking around and say, I didn't know that person was here. The light connects us and shows us things we wouldn't have seen without it. And some are already thinking, well, I get it. Okay, yes, have mercy on them, we can lower the lights again. Yes, we get used to the type of light we know. And so it's really fascinating to consider what the meaning of light is in this particular context. To understand it, we need more than the verse, but let's start there. John 8, 12. 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. When Jesus said that, I said, we need more to understand the meaning of light. Because in chapter 7 of John, and what you just heard in today's reading, is that Jesus was in the city of Jerusalem during a celebration called the Feast of the Tabernacles. It's a strange name, but it was a usual festival for them. And all the Jewish people came to Jerusalem.

And they gathered there to celebrate a time in the history of the nation after God had set them free from slavery in Egypt. And he guided them through the desert for a whole generation when they were essentially homeless. And this Feast of the Tabernacles refers to the temporary homes. The tabernacles or temporary shelters in which they lived for a whole generation while God sustained them. And so one of the things they did during this feast was to leave their homes and live in temporary tents and homes to remember the whole generation in which God sustained them while they had no home. They had no food, they had no resources, and God provided those things. So that's the festival that's happening in Jerusalem. And it wasn't just what happened in the desert, the provision that God gave them. It also had a lot to do with the way he did it, the way they experienced God himself. So I want to read to you that passage in the book of Exodus because it adds another dimension to the meaning of light. Exodus 13, this is directly from the time when this happened in the desert. It says that during the day the Lord would go before them in a column of clouds to show them the way. At night he would light them with a column of fire, so that they could travel day and night. They never left the people the column of clouds during the day or the column of fire at night. This was their experience of God during that time. The generation that God sustained in the desert experienced him as light. Imagine this, when Israel had no home, who was the light? When Israel had the sun in the desert hitting them over and over again, who filtered the light? When it was dark and they couldn't see what was in front of them, who was the fire that gave light? When they asked themselves, what do we do here, God? Years have passed. Who was the constant light of presence? It was God himself. This Feast of the Tabernacles was not only to remember what God did for them, but to recognize, remember, and celebrate the God who came to them as light. And something very interesting about this feast was that it had these huge columns of fire. There was a central temple where everyone would gather for the different parts of the feast.

And in the atriums, during the whole week, there were huge torches. The closest thing we have today is that huge Olympic torch that lights up at the opening ceremony. Imagine these torches all over the atrium. And they are on a scale. They were really that big. If I stood next to one, it would look more or less like this. They were huge columns of light. And during the feast, they were lit up all week. And I know you already know this, but I feel like I have to say it out loud. Ciudad sin luz, antorchas de luz. Literalmente una bendición para la ciudad por una semana. Una presencia constante de luz, recordando al Dios cuya gloria se les apareció como luz. Solo imagina este festival. Recordando la columna de fuego y contando las historias de lo que Dios había hecho cuando se manifestó a su pueblo. Y entiendes mejor lo que Jesús quiso decir con estas palabras. No era solo una metáfora. Él declaraba su identidad. Estaba parado frente a ellos diciendo, ese Dios que están celebrando, el que están recordando, el que fue una luz presente, el que guió, el que dirigió, el que se manifestó como fuego y nunca los abandonó, yo soy él, yo soy la luz del mundo. Esta fue una declaración de su identidad en medio de una ciudad que se preguntaba, ¿Quién es este tipo?

Sus propios hermanos. Si estabas escuchando el comienzo de la lectura, sus propios hermanos le decían, si de verdad eres alguien importante, mejor diles a todos. Los fariseos ya habían decidido, es de Satanás, hay que deshacerse de él. Y el pueblo no sabía qué pensar. Parte de la gente creía que era bueno, otros no. Algunos pensaban que era profeta, otros maestro, otros el Mesías. Jesús hablaba en el contexto de esto, fiesta, y esta ciudad que estaba, tratando de entender, ¿Quién es este hombre? Y Jesús se levantó delante de ellos y dijo, yo soy él, yo soy la luz del mundo. Ahora, como maestra, hay que reconocer el momento, ¿verdad? ¿Qué mejor lugar para decirlo que en una fiesta de luz rodeado de antorchas y de luz por todas partes? El problema es que realmente no fue lo que sucedió. Más adelante, en el capítulo siete, versículo 37 de Juan, supimos que era el último día de la fiesta. Esto es realmente importante para comprender una capa más de significado sobre qué es exactamente lo que Jesús dice aquí. Porque sí, les estaba diciendo, yo soy ese Dios. Y también lo estaba haciendo en el último día de la fiesta, donde ocurrió algo realmente interesante. Toda la luz presente durante la semana

se apagó el último día. Celebraron al Dios que podía ser luz. Pero el último día de la fiesta era una oportunidad para reconocer su realidad actual. Israel no había oído de este Dios. No había visto a este Dios por 400 años. Y en el último día, cada año, extinguían la luz. Y ahí luchaban con esta constante oscuridad, con la ausencia de este Dios. Recordaban al Dios que era luz, a quien celebraban como luz, pero luego decían, él simplemente, no está. No está. Y fue en ese momento cuando Jesús dio un paso al frente y declaró quién era. Entró en ese momento de oscuridad para decirles a todos, yo soy la luz del mundo. Si me sigues, no caminarás en tinieblas. De hecho, está usando la oscuridad como ejemplo, no las enormes antorchas de luz. Y les voy a decir la verdad. Lucho con esto porque Israel estaba en este momento donde tenían que admitirse a sí mismos que Dios está ausente. Y Jesús escogió el momento en que estaban más conscientes de su oscuridad para anunciarlo. Uno pensaría que es bueno, pero es el momento en que sería más difícil para ellos creer que Dios está en la superficie.

Estaba pensando en esto porque todos tenemos áreas de oscuridad en nuestra vida. Apuesto a que, si lo piensas un poco, quizá lo tuyo está en la superficie. Puedes identificar un área donde tú también crees que al menos en teoría, Dios podría ser luz allí. Quizá incluso sea un lugar donde Dios ya ha sido luz. Y por alguna razón, él no lo es. Ahora, al pensar en mi propia vida, puedo pensar en más de un lugar, supongo, desafortunadamente. Pero para mí, uno de esos lugares es en una relación con uno de mis hermanos. No suelo hablar mucho de esto. Y en gran parte es porque es un buen ejemplo de este tipo de oscuridad. of that darkness that persists and you simply say I have nothing more to say about this. It is simply how it is. This is how Israel would have felt in this relationship. I don't know if it has happened to you with someone in your family, but the darkness has been getting in since we were children, even before we knew what was happening. Only darkness and dysfunction and then long periods of absence during our youth in which we simply did not speak. We had no contact with each other. We lived far away and there was not much foundation between us. And I was driving here this morning and I thought, how do you explain this type of situation in which you have lost hope for a long time, that there could be something good there? And add to that those constant interactions in which you feel that you are in the darkness, walking straight towards a wall that you did not see coming.

This is how I felt for a long time. And then, in our last conversation, I cannot repeat in a loud voice the things that he called me. He insulted my faith and my family and I thought, I can't. I don't know how to do it. It's not that I'm angry. It's just darkness. That's what Jesus was talking about. That type of place, the place for which you don't even pray anymore. You don't even think that God will come because he has been absent for a long time. What are you going to do? It's just what it is. Now, I want you to imagine Jesus standing in front of you, wherever that place is in your life, whatever you are thinking. And I want you to imagine him pointing it out. He is with you. And he points out that place and says, You know I can be light there. If you follow me, there is life. How would you react? It would be difficult to believe him. Because you have a lot of real experience, lived experience, that tells you something else. And that was exactly what the nation of Israel was dealing with. Jesus got up and said, I am the light of the world, if you follow me. And they knew what he was saying. They knew the statement he was making. And when you are in that place, in that darkness, the question very quickly becomes, Do you believe? Do you believe him? Because Jesus affirmed to be the light of the world. The great I am.

But he chose this moment. He could not have chosen a moment, place, or people who had more difficulties to believe him. And that happens to us sometimes. He points out there and says, I have more. I can be light. What is our instinct? Yes. How not? Or why didn't you do it? Or I can't take a risk. I can't have hope again. Do you know the Gospel of John? It was written to ask that question. Do you believe? Not only about this statement, but about all the things that Jesus said about himself. John chapter 20. I would like all the books of the Bible to have a verse like this. It says exactly why this book was written. John 20 verse 31 says, But this has been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that when you believe, you may have life in his name. Where is life? In his name. He said, these things are written. What does he mean by these? The whole Gospel of John revolves around seven signs and seven statements about who Jesus is. These things that John preserved, these ideas that he wrote, are written so that we may believe, and when we believe, we may find life in his name. The light of the world.

John wrote. After this, he recorded a miracle of health, of sight. John recorded miracles to support these statements and raise the question that the crowd debated. Do you believe? And this specific question was asked at a difficult time. John knew it. He knew that the crowd fought with him. He knew that the Pharisees fought with him. He knew that his family also. And he knew that each one would decide. y la luz del mundo. Quien me sigue no andará en tinieblas, tendrá la luz de la vida. La pregunta está ahí. Por las palabras, quien me sigue. ¿Sabes qué no hacemos si no creemos? No seguimos. No nos movemos. No hacemos nada al respecto. Esta silla. Si no creo que vaya a aguantar, por favor, Dios, que aguante. Si no pienso que me va a aguantar, no me sentaré en ella. Sería una locura. Si observo algo y no lo creo, no realizaré ninguna acción consistente con esa creencia. No voy a hacer eso. Y por eso dije que la pregunta está integrada

en las palabras de Jesús, porque Él dice, el que me sigue me revelaré como luz. Yo soy la luz del mundo. Así que pregunta otra vez, ¿tú crees? ¿Vas a seguirme? Porque aquellos que sigan descubrirán que soy la luz del mundo. ¿Sabes? La Biblia describe la fe así. Mucho más como el taburete que como un acuerdo mental. Tendemos a pensar en la fe como una serie de afirmaciones que consideramos verdaderas o falsas. La Biblia representa la fe de forma distinta. Como verdades que estás dispuesto a vivir. Actuar, mover, seguir. Como si fueran ciertas. Déjame decirlo de otra forma. ¿Darás un paso hacia Jesús cuando todavía estás completamente en la oscuridad? Esa es la pregunta. Eso es lo que la declaración de Jesús sobre ser la luz del mundo habría confrontado a todos. ¿Me vas a creer después de 400 años de oscuridad? ¿Me vas a seguir para descubrirlo? Quiero que escuches una historia. Su nombre es Josh.

Es parte de nuestra comunidad. Trabajé con él el fin de semana pasado. Estaba a cargo del sonido en la conferencia Ignite. Y quiero que escuches su historia porque es la historia de alguien que realmente luchó con esa misma pregunta de hallar a Dios en la oscuridad. Ahora su historia es bastante cruda. Es bastante intensa. Y creo que estarás de acuerdo después de que la veamos juntos, que también está llena de esperanza. Cuando mi hermano, mi hermano mayor murió, él tenía 17, yo 13. Y entonces ahí es cuando mi entendimiento de Dios, de que no había Dios, o si había un Dios, era alguien en quien no confiar. Cuando hacía música, no pensaba tanto. Me gustaba estar conmigo. La gente que me quiere a mi alrededor decía, creo que bebes demasiado, y yo simplemente evitaba a esa gente.

Y en ese momento, cuanto más bebía, menos tenía que acallar cualquier pensamiento sobre Dios o sobre una brújula moral. Y detestaba pensar en cómo me comportaba. Estaba consumido por la oscuridad. Entonces conocí a mi esposa. Estuve sobrio casi un año cuando la conocí, y esa fue como la primera vez que empecé a sentirme algo esperanzado y feliz. Un tipo con el que giraba me llamó y mi esposa dijo, dijiste que viajar era una lucha. Le digo, está todo bien, estoy bien, pero apenas me enviaron los detalles del vuelo, empecé a planear. ¿Puedo beber mientras no esté cerca de ella, mientras no esté con ellos? ¿No puedo herir a la gente si no bebo frente a ellos? Eso llevó a una completa recaída

donde mi esposa por primera vez me vio bebiendo. Es como si finalmente viera esa parte de mí que había estado escondiendo. Ella dijo, está bien, no quiero que estés borracho frente a los niños. Ese día tomé mi cuchillo de trabajo y me corté la muñeca. Al volver del hospital me dijeron que tenía cargos por agredir a la policía. Es un delito grave. Yo dije, ¿qué? Los delitos graves son para gente mala. Supe que me habían denunciado por agredir a la policía mientras ellos, mientras los bomberos me ponían un torniquete en el brazo. Ni siquiera me alegraba despertar. Desperté e inmediatamente empecé a pensar en la vergüenza que sentía o fantaseaba con que solo necesitaba un lugar

donde pudiera volver a beber en una habitación de hotel yo solo. Todo estará bien. Mi esposa dijo, tienes que ir a un centro de rehabilitación. Si no vas, esto no puede continuar. Te estás matando. Se suponía que debía entrar en tratamiento el 8 de marzo. I got home in March and I said, I'll only have one last drink. I passed out and woke up in jail again. I was furious because I had to be in rehab. Now I have another public altercation and then they told me that I had assaulted my wife. That's it. That's it. I didn't care about hurting myself. I didn't care about dying, but knowing that I hurt her. I was in jail. I declared myself guilty of domestic violence. They put me in another drug and alcohol program. During that time, I went to trial for assaulting the police. Then I was sent to prison. During that time, I was in jail. In prison, I started reading the Bible for the first time. I wasn't reading for any other reason other than to get to know it. Why did you create me? Yes, all I did was become nothing. I started listening. And I started hearing God speak to me. And I wasn't afraid.

I was still ashamed, but I didn't feel ashamed for Him. And I had peace for the first time since I was a child. I got out of prison. I went to a reception center, which is worse than jail. We were all behind, and this guy approached me. He came to me and had a bottle of vodka-filled water. He said, Here, brother, do you want to drink? I said, No, I'm fine. Even though I wanted to do it and my whole body was telling me, This is yours. I said, No, I'm fine. Then I lay down and woke up the next day. That voice of self-sabotage was gone. The voice that said, Look at what you did. Look at all the destruction you caused in your life. Disappeared. I trusted Him by rejecting what my body asked for and my marriage. It has been healed since that moment. I have peace because I'm not fighting anymore. And it's wonderful. I love waking up every day. I love going to bed every day. And I no longer have obsessions. My obsession is just to look around me and see what God has given me. I work in sound at Eastside Crossroads. That passion, my love for sound, came back to my life.

Now I do what I always loved. There was darkness, but now there is light. It's an incredible story, isn't it? It's incredible. And every time I hear it, I hear new things in it. And I've heard it several times. And I don't want you to miss the key moment because he said it very simply. He was in the darkest and lowest point he had ever been. He was in prison and he said, I read the Bible. In such a simple way. It was this really small moment. And I promise you that when he did that, he asked his question. What did he say? Why did you create me if I was not going to do anything? It was a question almost full of anger towards God. And I assure you that what he read that day, perhaps he understood it or not. I don't know his story with the Bible. But I know he closed the book that day. And he didn't feel much light. But I wonder if one day God will point to that moment and say, Right there. That's where the light broke. Do you know that the eye naturally only captures 0.0035% of the light that is here? What if that is spiritually true? What happens if God points to that moment and says, Right there the light came in. Right there everything changed. And you were just walking more and more towards the light.

Did you see the other moment? I heard it very clearly this time. I hadn't thought about it the other times I heard this story. But he had another moment where he said that all I did was deny. The bottle of vodka and he woke up the next morning and something was different. A small moment, right? There are those little moments in which a ray of light flows. And we don't even realize that it has just changed the course of our whole life. Because the light of the world entered the room. My God, and if we knew it? What would you do if you really believed that this is true? And if you did, what could you risk doing really? Let's see some more words from John here because I think it gives us a little more clue about how we do that. How do we really get out of the darkness? These words come from a letter written by John himself. He wrote three letters that were preserved in the Bible. First, second, and third from John, the same man. And in the first from John, chapter 1, it says this. This is the message that we have heard from him, and we announce to you that God is light, and in him there is no darkness. If we affirm that we have communion with him, but we live in darkness, we lie. And we do not put the truth into practice. But if we live in the light, as he is in the light, we have communion with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. First from John 1, the first thing is to admit darkness. Admit darkness. There are places in our lives where we have gotten so used to it. You know, we don't think about it. It's like that, and we don't consider it anymore. Maybe it's been a long time, or a little, but it's like our eyes have adapted to darkness. And it starts to look like it's okay, that's how things are. But John says, if we affirm that we have communion with him, but we live in darkness, we lie. At the very least, we are lying to ourselves.

If we say that we have communion with the light, but we are walking in darkness, we are lying. The first thing we have to do is admit where we have decided to walk in darkness a little. I thought again in my life, I told you that unfortunately I can find more than one place, maybe you too. And I realized that maybe a year ago, the light began to diminish in an area of my life, and little by little I began to walk in a certain darkness. I think it went out, so slow that I didn't notice it. I don't know if it makes sense, but a year ago there were a couple of opportunities that I had in sight professionally. I really like to write. There were writing opportunities in front of me that just disappeared. And it's okay, you know, I consider myself a fairly resilient person. It's okay, it's okay. And then a couple of other things were eliminated. And suddenly the long road seemed a little blurry. And I started, I began to fall into a little despair. And suddenly, while I was preparing this message, you know how it is, you are going to preach about something and God says to you, and what about you? And from there, I realized that at some point I began to walk with some despair, like, maybe the truth is that God has nothing for me. And it was very strange because again I consider myself a fairly positive person. Or at least I can continue. And I didn't even realize it. I think I started to agree. I think I started to walk with this feeling of discouragement, perhaps of despair, about my future. Today I'm fine, but I think I'll get there. I'm not sure what else God could have. Maybe nothing. And just accept it. How strange, isn't it? I decided to walk in that darkness. I adjusted to it and began to feel according to it. We all do that with some things. Where is that?

We must recognize it and admit it if we want to walk out of there. The second thing, once we see it, is to expose that to the light. The words of John, he says, But if we live in the light as he is in the light, we have communion with each other and the blood of Jesus cleanses us of everything. Now, if we choose to expose this place, we could connect with someone else. We have communion with each other and the blood of Jesus cleanses us. The light of the world begins to cleanse you. And you know, that light really does that. I remember this from my 8th grade science class. In fact, it may be the only thing I remember from that class. That light has cleaning properties and that the opposite is also true. The question is, what grows in the darkness? We grow moss in our pupils. To show this, you pour a little water on a piece of bread. You put it in a bag and leave it in your pupil for three weeks. Really unpleasant things grow. We have discovered the same thing, right? There are quite unpleasant things growing in those shoes that they never took out of the bag after using them, with their feet sweating. Disgusting things grow in the darkness until we begin to expose them to light. Scientists say that people who do know about those things, about science, that light strengthens the immune system, improves the mood and kills bacteria. It does all kinds of things that cannot be done in the dark. I had this idea. I told you, God will put his finger on something for you once you start admitting this.

So this last Monday I did one thing because I just had this idea that I couldn't get rid of. And after doing it, I thought, oh, I think that's what I just did by accident. I had this idea that I should write all the professional places that I thought were lost. I told you, one after another, and it just ended up being discouraging. I just had the feeling that God was saying, hey, why don't you write them down? I said, you know what? I have better things to do than list opportunities lost and failures that, you know, things that are not going to happen to me. That's a great idea. It sounds funny, but you know, better not. But on Monday I really did it, and something funny happened. Psalm 139 says that for God, darkness is like light. He is not the one who cannot see. I can. You can too. When we expose this to light, we begin to see it in a different way. When I had to put words to some of these discourages, some of these disappointments, I realized that some of them simply disappeared. When I had to try to explain them and put them in a real word,

they were almost like disgusting things that bounced in the darkness that I couldn't even really justify. I thought, oh, that's not it. I guess that or that is pretty easy to understand. And the truth is, that even sounds a little silly when I try to put it into words. Some of them went between my fingers. They dissolved in front of me. Some of them are real. I fight with God for them. He didn't solve the problem. But when I exposed that to light, things were cleaned up. Things were lifted up. And I would encourage you, whatever it is, and whatever form it has, to expose it to light. Maybe it's telling someone. Maybe it's writing it down on a list. Maybe it's praying for that for the first time in a long time. Maybe it's making a phone call. But if you expose it on purpose, light will start doing what light does naturally. And lastly, I think it will be the natural result. But if not, we can do the third thing.

Walking in the light. That's what John says. If we walk, if we move, if we act as if his words were true, he says that if we walk in the darkness, we lie. But if we walk in the light, we are consistent. With what Jesus says. Which is true. We have to move even in the darkness. So let me ask you something. If you believed him, let's suppose you did. I'm going to lower the bar a little and say, what if you decided that you were going to practice believing him? That's how I think about it sometimes. So I don't feel like I have to sign with blood. I'm not totally sure that he believes you. But let me ask you, what would you do if you wanted to practice believing him this way? You could find a little thing that you are willing to do. Like Josh when he took his Bible and said to God, why did you create me? And he moved.

I had one this week. I didn't look for it. He found me. God is gracious. I was reading the Bible in one year in the Crossroads app. And at the beginning of the week they played some chapters of Proverbs. And you know how it goes. You're reading. The Proverbs, if you've ever been in that book, are just one wise saying after another. Many of them don't even seem to relate to each other in some sections of the book. It's like this and this. And you know, you just keep reading. Without assimilating them completely. This is what it says. In fact, I'll do it from memory because my little movement was to memorize this verse. The heart of man makes plans. I'm making a mistake. The heart of man makes plans. And the Lord establishes his steps. Wait. The heart of man

draws his path, dirije sus pasos. but the Lord Le dije a Dios voy a memorizarlo y claramente hice un pésimo trabajo. El corazón del hombre traza su rumbo pero sus pasos los dirige el Señor. Lo memoricé y fue mi pequeña forma de decirle a Dios, está bien, tenía mi corazón en algunas cosas pero creo que tú planeas mis pasos. Entiendo. No me gusta, no me gusta esto pero practicaré creer cada vez que diga ese versículo que diré más seguido. Que estás guiando mis pasos, que aún sabes hacia dónde voy incluso cuando mi corazón estaba decidido a seguir mis planes. Tienes pasos para mí y sigues trabajando, que es lo tuyo. Qué pequeña cosa, leer la Biblia. Es llamar a alguien, es memorizar un versículo, ¿qué es? Es la pequeña cosa que estás dispuesto a hacer en la oscuridad. Es la forma en que estás dispuesto a acercarte a Dios y decir, al menos puedo practicar creer que tú haces esto y te digo que ese es el momento. Será el momento en tu historia como la de Josh donde señala y dice, toda la luz, toda la luz del mundo apareció a tu alrededor

y solo debías seguir caminando porque Proverbios 4, 18, uno de mis favoritos desde hace mucho tiempo, la senda de los justos es como la luz de la aurora que va aumentando hasta que el día alcanza su plenitud. Nos da esta imagen de que cuando invocamos el nombre de Jesús como la luz del mundo, lo que acabamos de hacer es lanzarnos al camino que se vuelve más y más brillante hasta que experimentamos la plenitud de la luz del mundo a nuestro alrededor. Eso es lo que hacemos cuando nos acercamos en la oscuridad y cualquier vida, cualquier problema, cualquier cosa que se presente ante la luz del mundo puede unirse a la imagen final que obtenemos en la Biblia en Apocalipsis 21, 23, donde vivimos desde ahora hasta la eternidad así. Dice que la ciudad no tiene necesidad de sol ni de luna que alumbren porque la gloria de Dios ya la ilumina y el Cordero es su lámpara. Jesús, el Cordero de Dios, el Hijo de Dios, el Mesías enviado por Dios para salvarnos, la luz del mundo te pregunta, ¿crees? Y si crees, ¿darás un paso incluso en la oscuridad sabiendo que ahí es a donde todo se dirige al final? Juan inició su evangelio así. Esta luz resplandece en las tinieblas y las tinieblas no han podido extinguirla. Lo que sea que estés aquí, tratando de manejar, tratando de luchar, tratando de lidiar con una oscuridad que ha permanecido en tu vida, te prometo esto,

un paso en la oscuridad y la luz la supera. Ahí, déjame orar por ti. Señor, creemos y tratamos de creer en ti. Ayúdanos a recibir la vida. ¿Qué hay al creer que eres la luz del mundo? Eso queremos. Estamos simplemente tropezando en la oscuridad. Ayúdanos a entender cómo caminar hacia la luz esta semana. Oro por cada situación, por cada área de oscuridad y por cada rayo de luz. Cada vida que está en este lugar, pido que tú nos guíes fuera de la oscuridad hacia tu luz gloriosa. En el nombre de Jesús, oro, amén. Si las palabras de hoy te impactaron de alguna manera o te hacen pensar y reflexionar más acerca de cómo puedes aceptar a este Jesús en tu vida, queremos invitarte a que tomes un próximo paso. Ese puede ser escribirnos, nos puedes escribir a hola.crossroads.net y con mucho gusto buscaremos un tiempo para poder ver cómo podemos ayudarte a caminar en tu jornada con Jesús. A lo mejor quieres compartir tu historia acerca de algo que ya Jesús ha hecho en tu vida. Escríbenos, nos encantaría escucharlo. Lo que queremos que escuches principalmente es que no queremos que estés a sola. Durante esta temporada estamos invitando a todo el mundo a que considere ver estos mensajes con otra persona, explorar las palabras que escuchan y poder determinar juntos qué será lo que Jesús tiene

para nuestra vida, para nuestro futuro. Así que si eres tú, te animamos, escríbenos, te ayudamos a conseguir la conexión, la persona adecuada y esperamos verte el fin de semana próximo.