{"id":1843,"date":"2014-12-03T15:01:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-03T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/i-am-light-of-world\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:01:55","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T16:01:55","slug":"i-am-light-of-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=1843","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I AM THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\">\n<a href=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/LightoftheWorld.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/12\/LightoftheWorld.jpg\" height=\"283\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p>A couple of weeks ago, I heard from a friend who wanted to meet with me because she was very troubled, so we met at a restaurant, and spent about two hours talking about &#8220;issues&#8221; in her life &#8212; those issues had been going on for many years, and she was consumed with it all and unable to find peace. &nbsp;She had talked to friends who gave her conflicting advice which brought her even more confusion. &nbsp;At that meeting I explained my response by using the salt and pepper shakers and a ketchup bottle. &nbsp;I know God used our meeting that day, and His inspiration, to give me what I should share with those at the Advent by Candlelight events. &nbsp;I explained it this way by using a small lit votive candle and another one that was unlit. <\/p>\n<p>The unlit one represented the darkness in her life &#8212; the confusion, rejection, disappointment, pain. &nbsp;And the lit one was her. &nbsp;I circled the unlit one with the lit one and said &#8220;Your world is revolving around the troubles &#8212; and your thoughts are keeping you in the darkness. &nbsp; &nbsp;And the more you keep your focus there, the more you&#8217;ll be drawn to the darkness (the unlit candle).&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Then I replaced the unlit candle with the large lit candle. &nbsp;That large candle represents Jesus. &nbsp;When we focus on the ONE who said, &#8220;I am the LIGHT of the world, whoever follows ME, will NEVER walk in darkess&#8221; (John 8:12), then the darkness will diminish. &nbsp;As we&#8217;re drawn to spend time with the LIGHT, stay in fellowship with HIM, spending time in His Word, thinking about HIM &#8212; He Who knows everything about everything, the answers we need will come from Him. &nbsp;The divine set-ups and divine appointments and the &#8220;suddenlies&#8221; will start providing what we need. &nbsp;We&#8217;ll no longer be living in the darkness. <\/p>\n<p>And I share those words with you, today, dear FB friends. &nbsp;Maybe you are frustrated at the kids &#8212; making yet another mess in the house you just cleaned, maybe you are in need of finances for the &#8220;extra&#8221; you&#8217;ll need for this Christmas season, maybe you&#8217;ve received a negative health diagnosis, have relationship issues, have BIG decisions to make, and, now, the Christmas season has added to your stresses. &nbsp;I encourage you, today, to cozy up to Him, THE LIGHT that shines so brightly and desires to dispel the darkness that is around you. &nbsp;I promise you, He is the most reliable Counselor, the most indescribable &nbsp;Prince of Peace and the ultimate source for restoring LIGHT to your world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A couple of weeks ago, I heard from a friend who wanted to meet with me because she was very troubled, so we met at a restaurant, and spent about two hours talking about &#8220;issues&#8221; in her life &#8212; those issues had been going on for many years, and she was consumed with it all&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11037,9976,4902,2593,3804,722,723,10074],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-candle","tag-candlelight","tag-darkness","tag-depression","tag-disappointment","tag-john-812","tag-light-of-the-world","tag-rejection"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3090,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1843\/revisions\/3090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}