DAILY READING
REFLECTION
Praise the Lord! I Saw the Light!
by Kirstin Schoeff
Country gospel isn’t a genre of music I listen to often, but recently I was preparing music
for someone to whom country gospel was quite meaningful, and I happened upon the
song, “I Saw the Light” by Hank Williams. It speaks of wandering in the darkness of sin,
blind to the light of Jesus – and then “Jesus came like a stranger in the night. Praise
the Lord, I saw the light.”
Today’s passage talks about a “veil” being between people whose hearts don’t believe
in Christ and the truth of the gospel. The apostle Paul, who wrote this letter to the
believers in Corinth, referred in chapter 3:7-10 to the time when Moses received the
Law – the Ten Commandments written on two stone tablets by the hand of God.
Moses’ face glowed so brightly, simply from being in the glorious presence of the living
God, that he had to put a veil over his face for the Israelites to be able to look at him!!!
Now THAT’S a glow!!! Paul’s comment then is that the new ministry of the gospel of
Christ comes with even more glory and brilliance, but we don’t have a veil between us
and this Good News.
He goes on in chapter 4:3-4 to say that “if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who
are perishing. In their case the god of this age has blinded the minds of the
unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who
is the image of God.” (ESV)
Have you ever witnessed to someone, prayed faithfully for them, and wondered why
they were so stubborn, so unwilling to accept the Good News of Jesus? After I became
a follower of Jesus, I felt that way about my sister. I shared my excitement about
meeting Jesus and urged her to surrender her life to Him as well, but she only went
further from Him. One day, I read 2 Corinthians 4:3-6 and was struck by the fact that
her spiritual blindness wasn’t just her resistance to my message, but that actually the
“god of this world”(ESV), the enemy of our souls, had blinded her so she wasn’t able to
see the wonderful light and hope of the gospel of Christ.
Reading this changed the way I prayed for her and for others who are far from God. I
began to pray that she would be delivered from the blindness the enemy had used to
keep her in bondage to sin, and that those scales would be removed from her eyes so
she would see Jesus in all His glory, love, and mercy. About two years later, she wrote
and told me that she had received Jesus as her Lord and her Savior! What a day of
rejoicing that was!!!!
In humble awe and gratitude, we can proclaim daily: “Praise the Lord, I saw the Light!”
PRAYER
Lord, we thank you for your mercy in opening our blind eyes and allowing us to see you
and receive your gift of salvation and eternal life. We pray for those we know and love
who cannot see you. We ask you to free them from the blindness that comes from the
god of this world and let your Light shine out of darkness on them. In Jesus’ name,
Amen.
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