We had a child who was afraid of the darkness. When night fell, when the lights went out, when the house got quiet, she would lie in her bed terrified of every noise and petrified of every shadow. For a time she would even take certain objects out of her room before she went to bed—objects she had come to fear because of the scary shadows they would cast upon her floor and upon her walls. Often she would cry out in the night and we would have to stumble out of bed to quiet her, to investigate strange shapes, to try to convince her to go back to sleep.

She’s a lot older now and no longer so terribly fearful. After all, it’s children and not grownups who are afraid of shadows. As we grow up, as we mature, as we come to understand how the world works, we eventually realize that shadows have no substance, they have no reality, they have no ability to hurt or harm us. We set aside childish paranoias and no longer fear mere shadows.
But even with all of that being true, we do not live free from fears. Though we may stop fearing mere shadows, we realize there is plenty of substance and plenty of reality that is intimidating in its own right. This is a hostile world full of enemies who wish to do us harm. There is one enemy greater than any other who looms before us, not in the dark of night but at the end of our lives. Death looms in the distance as the great and final enemy, the one none of us can escape. Each of us knows we must eventually approach it, each of us must grapple with it, each of us must pass through it.
Yet the Bible assures us that we need not fear this enemy, for death itself is merely a shadow. At least, it is merely a shadow for those of us who have put our faith in Jesus Christ and received his salvation. We do not need to face the true substance of death because Christ faced it on our behalf. He took our sin upon himself, he faced the holy wrath of God, he served out the complete sentence it deserved. In this great sacrifice he took death’s claws, he took its fangs, he took its strength. And because of this, we need to face no more than the shadow.
Shadows can do no harm. The shadow of a dog cannot bite. The shadow of a cobra cannot strike. The shadow of a giant cannot tear limb from limb. And the shadow of death cannot destroy. Though it may claim our bodies for a time, it cannot touch our souls and cannot sever them from God. Though we must pass through it, we need not fear it. Though it stands before us, it has no true claim on us.
When we are called to approach death, then, as each of us will, it should comfort us to know that we face no more than a shadow. And it should comfort us as well to know that where there is a shadow there is always a light, for shadows cannot exist in total darkness. Beyond the grave a light shines brightly, a light of hope that guides us to Paradise and guides us to Christ, the one who has defeated death and who has assured us that where he is, we too shall be.

Inspired by the writing of F.B. Meyer.

My gratitude once again goes to Church Social for sponsoring the blog this week. They want you to know how their software can help simplify your church’s finances. Besides that, their software gives congregations a safe place to communicate, share information, and manage membership online.
Today’s Kindle deals include a few titles that are worth a quick look.
(Yesterday on the blog: From Washington & Jefferson to Trump & Biden)

I would imagine almost every adulterer once thought they were immune to adultery. Yet having witnessed so many people fall into it, we’d be silly to think we are necessarily immune. This article from CCEF shows how the slide into adultery often begins in subtle and deceptive ways.

Justin Taylor shares some powerful and encouraging writing by David Powlison. It truly is one of the most hopeful reminders you’ll ever read about sanctification. It’s one to bookmark!

“For those who have been affiliated with the teachings and practices within this movement [NAR], we know that dreams and visions are a major focus in it. Leaders teach and write books on the subject, providing dream interpretation books and claiming revelatory insight as to how to know what God is saying through dreams.” What do we do with all those claims of dreams and visions?

Paul Tautges: “One of the blessings of being a pastor is the opportunity to be part of a team of elders who visit church members in their homes for the purpose of ministering the Word and praying with them in times of suffering. Sadly, many church elders forgo this blessing and many believers do not request these kind of visits from their shepherds.”

Allyson Reid writes about some of the challenges of being a neurodivergent Christian. “I’d just returned from serving at a women’s event for my local church, a place where I often struggle with social interactions and sensory overstimulation. Therapists have suggested that I might be autistic due to a lifetime of these struggles. Although I’ve never sought a diagnosis, I do know that my brain works differently than others.”

Pastors will be blessed by reading this one by Geoff Chang.

To be gentle is to be tender, humble, and fair, to know what posture and response is fitting for any occasion. It indicates a graciousness, a desire to extend mercy to others, and a desire to yield to both the will of God and the preferences of other people.

Be content with no degree of sanctification. Be always crying out, ‘Lord, let me know more of myself and of thee.’
—George Whitefield

Never has there been a medium so ideally suited for spreading gossip as social media. Never have Christians been so eager to hear an evil report about another Christian than they are today. And that means gossip, slander, and evil reports move further and faster than ever. This old warning seems even more relevant today than in the day it was issued. I plead with you to read it, to consider it, and to apply it.

There is only one person worse than the whisperer, and that is the man or woman who listens without protest. The trouble is you hold the sack while they fill it. The receiver of stolen goods is just as bad as the thief.
An ancient writer declares that a slanderer and a man who receives the slander ought both to be hanged—the one by the tongue and the other by the ear. And I agree with him.
When you hear something bad about your neighbors do not go all over and ask about it whether it is true, and scatter it, and spread it. You might as well go to a smallpox hospital and take a patient and carry him all through the community asking people if they really thought it a case of smallpox. That would be very bad for the patient and for all the neighbors.
Do not retail slanders and whisperings. Do not make yourself the inspector of warts, and the supervisor of carbuncles, and the commissioner for street-gutters, and the holder of stakes for a dog-fight. Can it be that you, an immortal man, that you, an immortal woman, can find no better business than to become a gutter inspector?
(Drawn from the sermons of De Witt Talmage)