Jesus said to the crowd, “I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12). Those words must have sounded as strange to the crowd as they do to those who do not trust in Jesus today. What does he mean when he says they will not walk in darkness?
Remember he had just been talking to the woman caught in adultery. She knew what he meant. The day when those mean burst into the bedroom where she lie with her lover and dragged her in front of the crowd was one of the darkest days of her life. If she had not agreed to be intimate with someone not her husband, she would not be shamed openly.
Take deceiving someone as an example. When a person makes the decision to lie to someone, they have to forever remember what they said. They may have to tell other lies to cover the first one. Eventually they develop a habit of deceiving others to the point that they no longer know which is a lie and which is the truth. They daily live in the dark world of deception.
Indeed living according to what Jesus taught frees us from the dark world of shame, deception, anger and hatred. Instead we live in the light of freedom.
