In this sermon titled "Light Conquers Darkness," the speaker highlights the fundamental biblical truth that light triumphs over darkness, inspired by personal conversations about past injustices and the powerful messages of scripture. Referencing Romans 16, he urges listeners to remain vigilant against darkness while focusing on the light of Christ, emphasizing that true fellowship with God requires an active choice between light and darkness. Using physical analogies, he explains that while light is essential and requires energy, darkness is merely the absence of light and doesn't necessitate effort to exist.

The sermon further delves into the spiritual implications of light and darkness, referencing passages from 1 John and John to illuminate the incompatibility of sin and faith. The speaker warns against the dangers of blending the two, noting the world's inclination to normalize sin under the guise of love or acceptance. He encourages believers to cultivate a strong relationship with God through His Word, expressing gratitude and engaging actively in their faith to dispel the darkness in their lives.

Ultimately, he concludes that overcoming darkness requires divine energy through God’s light, prompting us to reach out, spread positivity, and ask, "How can I make this world a brighter place?" The message resonates deeply as it encourages a conscious choice of obedience and light, empowering listeners to reflect on their own spiritual journeys and the impact they can have in a world rife with darkness.

I greet each of you in the name of Jesus Christ, from whom all blessings flow as we sang that song there after Sunday school. I was blessed by that thought. It flows well with my thoughts this morning. The title of the message is Light Conquers Darkness. And this message was inspired by two conversations I've had recently.

I don't know how many of you know I had the privilege to visit Glenn. And while I was down there in Mississippi, I also got the privilege to visit with Philip Knipp. And I think some of you might know who that is. He's the one that had our revivals in November. And it was very fascinating to me as they were sitting there comparing memories.

Of course, Glenn's older than Philip. But they both could remember the racism in Mississippi in their younger years, and the darkness that it was, and the injustices that were done. And then, just this past week, at my neighbor's Bible study, talking about Balaam and Balak, how Balak asked Balaam to come curse the children of Israel. And the sorcery that he was requesting, how God just stopped that and said, no, you're not going to curse my people. You're going to bless them.

And that inspired the message this morning. Light conquers darkness. You can turn to Romans 16, verses 17 to 20. It's hard to know how much to focus on darkness. We need to be aware.

We need to be warned. And yet, our focus needs to be on the light. Because if our focus is only on the darkness, it's like somebody said, if we're going down the road and we're focusing on the guardrails, we're going to hit the guardrails. We're going to have an accident. They're there to keep us safe, but we're not supposed to need them.

And I believe it's a little bit like that with focusing on the darkness. If we focus on the darkness, we're going to have a spiritual accident. But if we focus on the light, the message this morning is a little bit more of a focus on the darkness, perhaps. So I do apologize, I guess, in advance for that. But I want to take something from here, Romans 16, just starting at verse 17 to get the context.

Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned, and avoid them. And they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. For your obedience has come abroad unto all men. I am glad therefore on your behalf, but yet I would have you wise unto that which is good and simple concerning evil. And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. He's saying here, he wants us to be wise unto that which is good, wise unto that which is light, and simple concerning the darkness and the evil that surround us in the world today. But we do have the confidence that Satan is going to, what's he say, bruise Satan under your feet. And that's a powerful promise that we have.

I want to talk a little bit about physical light and darkness. What are these terms? And I think that gives some analogies for the spiritual. If you go back to Genesis 1, you'll find out that the very first thing on the very first day of creation God created was light. We know God is light.

Light is very important to him. Where God's presence is, there can be no darkness. It's impossible. So when God came and he went to form the earth, the first thing that there was was light. Makes sense, right?

On the fourth day, he created the sun and the moon. And I find that fascinating how he created light, and then he created the things which make light, right? The measure of light that we use today is called lumens. So I was curious, so I just searched, well, how many lumens is the sun? Now that's ridiculous, but 35.7 octillion lumens.

So that would be probably almost the whole way across the board, and I'll save the time this morning. You can go home and try to write that out. So that was curious. So let's say the regular light bulb is about a thousand lumens, and well, that would be 35.7 septillion lumens. So if you think of a million, that's a lot, right?

And then you take, septillion has the idea of seven, so it's seven times that. If you can process that a little bit in your mind. A million seems like a lot to us, but 35.7 septillion light bulbs would equal the amount of light that the sun is putting off, and God created that light for us. Light is necessary for our human bodies, we know that. I'm told that we have a biological clock inside that regulates our awakeness and our sleeping patterns.

And exposure to light, especially natural light, definitely has a part to play in aligning our internal clock. Another fascinating thing about light is that it travels 670 million miles per hour. So you're going down the road, you're going 65 miles per hour, 67 miles per hour, well take that times 10 million. That's how fast light is going, so you're not going to catch up. One core fact of light is that it requires energy.

The core of the sun is energized by nuclear fusion that generates the heat and light that we are blessed with today. It powers the sun. You all know that when they wanted light prior to electric, they needed to have fire. Fire creates light. It's energy.

It's energy being consumed. We know that our modern lights require electricity in some form or another. And without, you turn the electricity off, you don't have light. It requires energy. Heavenly light is powered by God, the source of all energy.

We talk about heaven. And we have light there. It's because God is the source of energy. He doesn't need a sun or electric or fire like we do. He is the source of energy.

Another fact about light is it makes darkness disappear. So you can have a room that's totally dark and you just flip on a bright light and the darkness is gone. It doesn't take time for that light to work its way across the room. It's just gone. Light replaces darkness.

It makes darkness disappear. Let's talk about darkness a little bit. You could almost argue there is no such thing as darkness. It's simply less light or the absence of light. You block the light and you have darkness.

It's the default. When the sun goes down, the earth blocks the rays from the sun as you're on the other side of the earth. And the earth blocks that light. You can no longer see it. And we say, well, it's getting dark.

You turn the lights off, you have darkness immediately like we said. And as I mentioned before, darkness is the default. You do not need any energy to have darkness. If you turn the energy off, you have darkness. If you think about it in a spiritual tense, that's important.

Our bodies, our physical bodies are created to need darkness. And it does affect our sleep. Supposedly when it gets dark, our brain produces the hormone melatonin. You might have heard of that already, which tells our body it's time to wind down. It's time to start winding down and get ready to go to sleep.

Now we've really messed that up probably with a lot of artificial lights. But that is the way we are created. Understand that too much darkness can trigger depression. Our bodies need light. There will be no darkness in heaven.

Revelation 21, 23 to 25. And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it. For the glory of God did lighten it and the lamb is the light thereof. And the nations of them which are saved shall walk in the light of it. And the kings of the earth to bring their glory and honor into it.

And the gates of it shall not be shut at all by day, for there shall be no night there. As we mentioned, where God is, there can be no darkness. It's impossible. Now I want to move into the spiritual context of light versus darkness. I want to take you to 1 John 1.

I have some passages I want to read here. Turn with me to 1 John 1. I'm going to read verses 5 to 7. This here is a message from Jesus. John the disciple is reading it, starting in verse 5.

This then is the message which we have heard of him and declare unto you that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another. And the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses us from all sin. So we see here that we have on one side we have fellowship with Jesus and on the other side we have walking in darkness.

They are just as incompatible as light versus darkness. If you have one, you're not going to have the other. If you have the other, you're not going to have the first one. Walking with Jesus and walking in darkness are two totally opposite things and you cannot mix them. Obedience is light.

Sin is darkness. Obedience to God's will. I want to specify that. As we think of walking, walking is an action. It requires a choice.

When you decide to walk somewhere, you have a destination in mind, I hope you do, and you made a choice to no longer be standing still but you're going towards something. You have a purpose. You made a choice and there's action there. And the same is true as walking in light versus walking in darkness. You make a choice.

Which one are you going to choose? You're going to choose to walk in fellowship with Jesus Christ or you're going to choose to walk in sin, in darkness. That is our choice. Now we do know that the world wants us to think that there's a lot of shades of gray. It's a lot of things that, well, you can have a certain amount of sin and still have fellowship with Jesus Christ, right?

But we know spiritually that twilight is not an option. Another word that the Bible uses is lukewarmness. And we know that God disgusts, is disgusted by lukewarmness. He wants to spit it out of his mouth. Lukewarmness, twilight is not an option for us.

Mixing darkness and light cannot be. John 1, 4, 5, and 9, John 1 talks about the light. In the beginning was the word. Well, who was the word? Somebody help me out.

In the beginning was the word. Who was the word? Thank you. In him was life and the life was the light of men. He is the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness and darkness comprehended it not. That was the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world and the world was made by him and the world knew him not. So we see that Jesus came to bring light. He came to turn the lights on in the room and make the darkness disappear.

That was his purpose. Unfortunately, it also says that the world did not comprehend his light. And many of them continued in darkness, and that's a sad story. May it not be us. John 12, 44 to 46, Jesus cried and said, he that believeth on me believeth not on me, but on him that sent me.

He said, if you believe on, if you believe in me, Jesus is talking, says not about me. It's about God, my father, the one that sent me here. You're believing him. If you believe me, Jesus is saying, and he that seeth me seeth him that sent me. I am come a light into the world that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

And we see here that if I choose to believe on Jesus, I cannot abide in darkness. We cannot continue in darkness. I cannot remain in darkness. Jesus did not save us in our sin. He saves us from our sin.

And that's an extremely important thing to keep in mind. He turns the light on so that we can see our sin, right? And at that point, we have the choice of whether we're going to repent from that sin. And repentance means you're walking this way and you turn around and you start walking this way. You make an about face and you turn around, do the opposite thing of what you were doing.

That's the repentance. It's not like, well, I just want to keep doing a little bit more of this. That's not what repentance is about. So Jesus turns the light on and he shows us our sin, our darkness, and we get to choose. Is it repentance?

Is it a turning around? Is it a casting out the darkness? And if we choose repentance, Jesus' light is going to clean out the darkness that's in our lives if we allow him to. Obviously, the opposite is true as well. If I choose to continue to abide in sin, Jesus' light will not remain with me.

I will remain in darkness. Isaiah 520, woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness for light and light for darkness, that put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. So he's using some figures of speech there. He's saying, woe unto them that call light darkness and they call darkness light. And we know that that warning is very real because we see it all around us.

The world loves to call darkness light. We have heard over and over again that accepting homosexuality and transgender is called love. Now we know that God loves each individual, but accepting the sin is somehow considered love in our world today. Selfishly acquiring wealth for myself is called the American dream, success. Embracing other religions is called diversity.

Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by me. There is no other religion. It is not diversity. We know that God has no time for this deception and his light cuts right through it.

There is no twilight. If we're willing to comprehend his light, like in 1st John where it talked about, yeah, John 1, where it talked about how the world did not comprehend his light. But if we are willing to comprehend his light, if we are willing to believe what he said, we are going to walk in the light. I'm going to take you to Ephesians 5. It talks about the unfruitful works of darkness, and then I want to move into strongholds of darkness.

Ephesians 5, we're going to start in at verse 1. Be there for followers of God as dear children. I'm going to read 1 through 16 here. I just didn't know where to start and stop because I was looking, especially verses 3 to 5, but it seems like the context here is important. Be there for followers of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also hath loved us and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor.

And that ties in closely to our Sunday school lesson this morning. But fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be once named among you as become as saints. Neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks. For this you know that no warmonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man who is an idolater hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words, for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience.

Be not ye therefore partakers with them, for you were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light, and the Lord walk as children of light. There it is, a conscious decision, a command to walk in light. For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth. Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord, and have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. We talked in our Sunday school lesson about being all things unto all men, and that needs to be balanced with this verse.

Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret. Our world has lost that shame. Our world has put that shame on the front of the newspapers, and have called it light instead of darkness. But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light, for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

Wherefore he saith, awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil, the days are dark. Now he does, I asked what are the unfruitful works of darkness, he does give some here in verses 3 to 5, and it basically boils down to sin. Sin separates us from God. I want to move into strongholds of darkness, and these are things that bring darkness into our lives, and things that we need to ask God to expel from our lives.

First one I have here, now I want to bring back the idea that darkness is the default. Remember, darkness does not require energy. Light requires energy, so it takes work. If we do not choose to walk in light and walk in righteousness, our default is going to be darkness. It's our human energy.

It requires no energy on our part. It's our human nature. It requires no energy on our part. The first one I have here is lack of hunger for God's Word. I believe that is something that's going to cause darkness, because where else are we going to find light?

1 Thessalonians 5, 3-6 He's like, you've been told this. You know this. What if we don't know it? Well, what's the problem? We're not reading the Word.

For when they shall say, Peace and safety. So if you're listening to the world rather than to God's Word, you're going to hear peace and safety. Then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not in darkness, that that day should ever take you as a thief. Because you know, you've been told, you're not deceived like the world around you.

We are not of the night, nor of darkness. Therefore, let us not sleep as do others, but let us watch and be sober. When the Anabaptists were in Europe, they were energetic about living the Christian life, living out the Bible. They were energetic about telling their neighbors, even if it cost them their lives, cost them their farms. They memorized the Bible, and that's one thing I don't do good at.

I'm preaching to myself. They lived what the Bible said. They debated with their religious rulers. They pointed out their fallacies and their teachings. They wrote books to admonish and encourage each other.

And like I said, they gave up their lives and their properties to follow Christ. What happened when they came to America? Now they had freedom of religion. They had freedom to live as they wanted to. And they focused on their farms and on building up their wealth.

Many went from extreme poverty to wealth in a generation or two. What was interesting is their evangelism went quiet. Their writing all but ceased. We have almost no writings during that time when they had the freedom to write. They weren't going to get thrown in jail for writing, but now they're not writing.

They became known as the quiet of the land, and they almost lost their light. Which one are we? How bright is our light? Am I reading God's word? Am I telling others what's there?

Am I telling the truth? Am I spreading light in the darkness? Am I discussing it with my friends and with my co-workers? Am I writing what God laid on my heart? See, light requires energy.

If you want the blessing of God, you need energy. See, light requires energy. If you want the blessings of God in your life, you're going to have to put forth energy. You're going to have to put forth work. Another stronghold of darkness that comes to my mind is discouragement.

And one of the main reasons for discouragement is a lack of gratitude. I really enjoyed the one song we sang this morning. It says, I will extol thee, O my God, and praise thee, O my King. Yet every day and evermore thy praises I will sing. Every day will I bless thee.

You wake up every morning and make a conscious effort, conscious decision. Today I'm going to bless God. Today I'm going to be grateful for the good things that I have. I woke up this morning in reasonable health. I'm here today.

My house did not burn down last night. My family's still with me. You just start naming your blessings and what we really have. It's so easy to focus on the negatives. But we have to focus on the blessings that God's given us.

I will praise thy name forever and ever. It's a wonderful testimony there in that song. So I think of discouragement. God does allow hard times in our lives. Could be poor health.

Could be the passing of a family member. Could be financial struggles. Could be spiritual battles. Could be a spiritual death of a family member. Job 10, 18 to 22.

Job 10, 18 to 22. Wherefore then hast thou brought me forth out of the womb? Why did you even bother having me born? God, life is hardly worth living. Why was I even born?

Oh, that I had given up the ghost and no eye had seen me. I should have died before I was born. I should have been as though I had not been. I should have been carried from the womb to the grave. Are not my days few?

Cease then and let me alone that I may take comfort a little. Before I go, whence I shall not return even to the land of darkness and the shadow of death. A land of darkness is darkness itself and of the shadow of death without any order and where the light is is darkness. So we see here that Job was going through a very dark time and we know the background, which Job did not know. We know the cause, that God was allowing Satan to work in his life and the cause he struggles.

His family had passed away, all his children. All his means of providing for himself and his family and all his means of blessing the widows that he talked about. It was all gone. He had nothing. And even his friends felt like he no longer had them because they just came and criticized him.

And so God allows us things into our lives sometimes. And they cause us to get discouraged. They bring darkness into our lives. I had to think of Elijah. He's another man who said, God, just let me die.

Let me die. He just had that tremendous victory where God showed his power and the fire came down and just swallowed up that altar that was just drenched with all that water. And yet, in spite of all that power that God displayed, and yet he sensed that the darkness was still there. And then he was running for his life because Queen Jezebel wanted to kill him. He's like, God, just let me die.

What did God say? God spoke truth into his life. God said, you're not alone. Anyone here living for me, you're not alone. There's 7,000 other people that had not kneeled, had not bowed to the altar of Baal.

That was the darkness that was in their world right then, the Baal worship. There's 7,000 in Israel that had not bowed to that darkness. Then he said, Elijah, I have work for you to do. Go! You're here discouraged.

And you're like, let me die. And God says, go, I got stuff for you to do. I need you to go anoint this king and I need you to go. Elijah's going to be there and he's going to walk with you and he's going to take your place and you need to go throw your mantle on him. You need to do this and this and this.

Elijah wanted to be in darkness. And God brought light. He said, go. I think that's the answer for discouragement. God, what do you want me to do?

Well, go. Start walking. Next one I have here is very close to the same, but I believe it's a deeper and darker. And that is depression. I have never walked the valley of depression in the sense of the true sense of clinical depression.

I think I tend toward it in some ways. But what I've heard is that people say it's just a tremendous darkness. Like there's no light there. Place of mental darkness. And there's no meaning in life.

And my mind went to Ecclesiastes. And I'll just paraphrase it a little bit. It's like all is emptiness. All is vanity. It's empty.

It's worthless. Everything's worthless. What profit does a man have for all his work? I'm born, I die. There's no purpose for me.

I work for happiness, but my soul is still empty. I had all this wisdom, but it just brought grief. I had all this knowledge, but it brought me sorrow. I pursued pleasure, but that too left me empty. I built great things and acquired great wealth, but I may as well have chased the wind.

To him it's just pointless. As he looked back on his life, he said, there doesn't seem to be any point in living anymore. I think that's a little bit where depression can take a person. Where there's no value in life. There's no purpose.

I may as well die. Nobody wants me. What is the answer for somebody at that place? Ecclesiastes 12, 13. While we're in Ecclesiastes, one of the last verses in the book says, let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter.

It's just depression. Everything's worthless. It's not worth living for. I may as well die. He said, here's the conclusion to where that thought process took me.

Fortunately, it was a good conclusion. Some people come to a wrong conclusion. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter. Fear God and keep his commandments. For this is the whole duty of man.

See, one thing with depression is a focus on myself. It's a focus on what's not going right for me. He said, the first thing you need to do is get that focus off yourself. You need to say, your focus needs to be on God. Fear God.

Stop thinking about myself and start thinking about God. And then you think about keeping his commandments. Just ask God, what should I do? What do you want me to do? And as he says, go, and you take that first step out of that darkness.

Just go. Just do it. So I think it triggers for depression. Some of this came from research because, like I said, I don't personally have a large amount of experience with this. But one trigger for depression can be losing a loved one.

And we know there's no sin in losing a loved one. Of course not. But it can be a trigger to take us to that darkness where we do not want to go. And I think we need to take time to grieve. I know of somebody living close there to us that her husband passed away.

And it was not a good relationship. And it ended on a difficult note. And I was like, when's the visitation going to be? I want to come. And she's like, there isn't going to be one.

We're not going to have one. And it felt to me like we're just going to try to pretend. We're just going to move on with our lives. But I know that's not healthy. And it hasn't been healthy for her either.

We need to give our grief to God. We need to tell God how much it hurts. Just like Job said there in all his speaking there, even when he's like, God, why? And it's okay to ask why if we want to know the answer. But if we're challenging God, then that is a problem.

Tell God how it hurts. Be honest with it. And accept his healing in our lives. Financial disaster can be a trigger. Some people find that when everything's gone, it dumps them in the depths of despair and depression.

But if we realize, if we remember that it's God's money that disappeared overnight, and it's going to be okay. Money is not what we're about. Wealth is not who makes us. We're going to be perfectly okay if God's going to provide for us. He promised that he will.

Get up and go to work. Get out and make money. It's so easy to drop into the depths of despair where we feel like we have no energy left to do anything. And God said he's going to provide. It's okay.

Low self-esteem is another one that can cause depression. It's a trigger for depression. And what low self-esteem is, again, is a focus on myself. How are other people viewing me? Why doesn't anybody care about me?

Why don't I have the gifts that that brother has? Why don't people appreciate what I'm doing? And it's just, why am I no good? And it's just a tremendous focus on myself. And that takes us into depression very quickly if we allow our thought patterns to go there.

We need to stop focusing on ourselves. We need to start focusing on blessing others. Instead of saying, why don't they appreciate me? Say, how can I bless them? See, it just turns that focus right on its head and turns it opposite direction.

Instead of thinking how everybody thinks about me start thinking about how I'm thinking about them. I think that's so important. When we look at low self-esteem and depression, how can I bless others? Instead of how, why are others not blessing me? Drunkenness or drug use is what leads many people into depression.

Many people choose to drown out the pain in their lives instead of facing it with God's help. And I don't know that any of us today is facing drunkenness and drug use, illegal drug use. But maybe there's other things in our lives that we're using to drown out those things, those hard things in our lives. We can just, mindlessness. But we'll get there a little bit more here in a bit.

Along with that, my mind went to loneliness. And I believe loneliness is more prevalent today than it probably ever has been. Scientists have tracked the invention of the smartphone and depression. And especially in young teens, I'm sorry, teens and young adults. And they say smartphones were introduced in 2007.

And eight years after that, 2015, 92% of teens and young adults owned a smartphone. And they say that clinical depression grew right along with that. Now that's correlation, they call it, maybe not causation. But when two things happen at the same time, you step back and you say, hey, why? Why is that?

Why did depression increase along with smartphones? And I think there's some truth in that. Obviously, modern social media replaces real relationships in our lives. And that real relationships you have with people, even if it's not easy relationships, is a light in the darkness. And you replace that with something artificial and safe.

And it actually causes you to be lonely because you're not feeding that need for relationship in your life, in your lives. It drowns out reality. It also makes us useless in God's work if we're spending a lot of time in that. They say that endless scrolling on our phones is a trigger to depression because it's emptying our minds of worthwhile thoughts. Remember, light requires energy.

So if you're just sitting there scrolling on your phone mindlessly, there's zero energy. Your mind's not putting forth any energy into thinking worthwhile thoughts. Obviously, loneliness has been around a long time before smartphones. It's not the only cause. It can be so easy to withdraw into our shell and hold others out of our lives.

Now, what's the answer for that? You could say, go, as God told Elijah. I think we should walk out into the light and speak to a neighbor. Hike out into God's great creation. That's very healthy for depression.

It's a good treatment for depression. Get out into nature. It's God's creation. There's life there. Sit on the porch and call a friend.

Help a church brother for a day or a church sister for a day. And focus off myself and start looking at God and our brothers and sisters in Christ. I got to this point when I was studying for this sermon and I had five more points here. And I'm like, you know what? This is going to have to be another sermon because there's more here.

Definitely the darkness increases. I have lust, hatred toward others, evil spirits and witchcraft, fortune telling, and finally God's wrath. And I'm going to look at that in another message because the strongholds of darkness and where that takes us. In summary for the message here this morning, we know that light is stronger than darkness. We talked about darkness, but we know that light is stronger.

And that light can dispel the darkness in our lives, but that light requires energy. And life-saving energy can only come from God. I cannot, you cannot expect to overcome the powers of darkness in your life without God's energy. without God's light in your life. How many dark rooms do I think I can have in my life and still have that relationship and that power of God in my life?

It's a question I ask myself. We need to reach for God. We need to immerse ourselves in His Word and in His light. We need to be grateful, thank Him for His love and what He has done for us. And ask Him, Father, what can I do for you today?

How can I make this world around me a brighter place? How can I shed light in darkness? Let's pray.