The Light of Love

Show Notes

Thirty years ago, I was a hardened cop who drew chalk lines around dead bodies and went to eat lunch without caring. But when I stepped into the light of God's love, everything changed. God's x-ray machine isn't condemnation—it's love. He wants to take what doesn't belong in your life and replace it with things you can't even dream of having. 

What is Carter Conlon | A Call to the Nation?

Carter Conlon presents a weekly 24:55 program, encouraging and equipping a generation willing to pray, willing in God’s power to rise up and plead for mercy on behalf of others. Carter says: “As God’s people we have a responsibility to believe God for the power to find the full purpose that He has for our life!”

God's Faithfulness to Prayer

I want to talk about how God is faithful to prayer. Oh, my, I have seen that now over the years. Just talking to Him and bringing to Him the desires of our heart. And sometimes we're talking to Him about things that seem to be impossible, only to find they become possible in God. I don't know how else to say it. They suddenly were through a door that it seemed like it was a cement wall six feet thick. And suddenly there's a door and we walk through it and say, on the other side, we look back and say, "God, I never could have accomplished this. It could not have happened. This change couldn't have come into my character. I couldn't have been given this ability apart from you."

And the sudden awareness that this is a miraculous kingdom, a phenomenal relationship with the living God who created us with the breath of His mouth and is able, as He says, to change us by the Spirit of God into the very image of Christ. In a sense, the character of Christ becomes our character. The victory of Christ becomes our victory.

A Personal Testimony of Transformation

So a brother and friend shared how the impossibility of a life that is just bent in a certain direction can't get out of that lifestyle and pattern in a moment of time, picking this Bible up and saying, "God, if this is true, then show me." And a sudden light coming, a sudden dawning of the light of God.

That's what happened in my life in 1978. After reading the Gospel of John, I pulled over on the side of the road and I prayed. I said, "Jesus, if this is true, if you are the Son of God, if you went to a cross and you died for my sin, if you are the only way into eternal life, if your promise of a new character, a new heart, a new life and a new mind is true, then I want this and I ask you to make it real to me and come into my heart."

Now, I didn't have this immediate revelation, but the next morning, I've shared with you many times, many of you, that I got up and I remember the moment my feet touched the floor and I don't know how I knew, but I knew I was a different man. I knew God had heard my cry and something sovereign had happened in my life. A change had come, which is only God. He had taken up his residence inside my physical body, which is what He says He will do through the Holy Spirit when I have trusted Jesus Christ for my salvation.

The willingness to just be real with God, the willingness to not put on religious airs, but just say it the way it is. God is not offended by our struggles. Let me give you a word of encouragement, my brother. As you get older, it gets easier to be a peacemaker. I used to be fit. The other day, I said to my wife, I took my arm, I was in a short-sleeved shirt, and I shook it. I said, "Look at that. It's jello on a stick. The only thing keeps my muscles from falling on the ground is they're hanging onto the bone." And so I either have to make peace or die. I don't have any other option anymore. It gets easier as you get older.

The Most Profound Words in the New Testament

The most profound words, potentially in the entire New Testament, were spoken by the mouth of Jesus Christ about Himself. And He said these words, He said, "For God so loved the world." God so loved the world. That means you and me. That means you and me in our fallen condition. That means you and me in nightclubs, you and me with violent thoughts in our hearts, you and me in prison, you and me in places where we shouldn't be doing things we shouldn't do. God so loved the world—you and me, the world—that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16).

In other words, the perishing is not simply dying and going into the grave, which we all have to do, but it's an eternal separation from God. That's the perishing. Sin separates from God, not just for time, but forever. Sin can't dwell. That means wrong living, wrong thinking, wrong doing, according to the Word of God, cannot dwell in the presence of a holy God, now or at any other time in eternity.

But God was not willing to lose you and God was not willing to lose me. And because He loved us, He sent His Son. The Bible tells us in the Gospel of John at the beginning, He was in the beginning with God, He was with God, and He was God. The Bible says that everything that exists was created by Him. And then He became flesh for only one reason. He became a man for one reason, because He loved us and He went to a cross and He allowed himself to be beaten, whipped, spit on, His beard ripped out of His face, mocked by those people, including you and I, that He had created in His own image, for the express and only purpose that we might be forgiven, that an innocent man might take the place and pay the price for all the wrong things that you and I have done.

Coming to the Light

God did not send His Son into the world, Jesus said, to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He that does truth, He said, comes to the light, that his deeds might be discovered, whether or not they originate from God (John 3:17, 21). He comes to the light. As you heard, he doesn't hide, he doesn't try to push his way into the kingdom of God, he doesn't try to become something he's not, he simply comes to the light.

It's like when you and I take a journey on an airplane or try to get into some public facility, you have to go through, now in modern airports, you have to go through a body scanner which shows everything that is on your person that is not allowed to make the journey. And he who does truth, comes to this light. God has an x-ray machine, but the x-ray machine is love. The whole light is love. The whole motivation is love.

And whoever wants to belong to God, comes to this light of God, and doesn't try to dig down in his pockets and take off his belt and shoes and puts things in a plastic bin like we have to do in an airport, because our hands are not deep enough to go to the depths of our character, because there are things in us that we can't get out. It's absolutely impossible. So all we can do is step in the light as we are. It's a private moment. God never puts us to shame. It's a personal moment.

We step in the light, and it can be uncomfortable. When I first got saved and I started to read the Bible, it's, "God Almighty, how am I ever going to change?" I was an incredibly selfish man. And I remember I was making my marriage a difficult thing in the first years, and I remember reading the book of Ephesians. It said, Husbands, love your wives as Christ loves the church (Ephesians 5:25). I remember saying out loud, "Oh, right. That's easy for you to say, God, as Christ loves the church. How in the world am I going to do that?"

And I remember it was an honest question. It was an honest stepping into the light. It was an honest admission. I'm not like this. I don't do this, and I don't know how to do this. And the Lord answered it in an unusual way. He just said, "Let me show you how much I love you. And in the knowledge of that love, then start to love your wife. I'm going to show you, and I'm going to teach you, and I'm going to guide you, but you have to be willing to come to the light. You have to be willing to read this book and let it read you, and bring these things as it is into the light. And let God take out of you and take out of me everything in us that doesn't belong there."

It can't make, He says, He looks at us and says, "No, that's unforgiveness. That can't make the journey. And this anger can't make the journey, and this can't make the journey." And He says, "Now let me take it from you. Don't have to empty your pockets. I'll take it from you. Step into the light, and I'll take it from you. But not only will I take it from you, I will replace it with things that you can't even dream of having."

The Choice Between Light and Darkness

But then He said, he who does evil hates the light and neither comes to the light lest his deeds should be reproved (John 3:20). He likes the way he is. He doesn't really want to change. He'd like to go to heaven, but he'd like to keep his deeds. Sort of like the man who goes to the airport and dumps all his junk in the plastic tray and knows he's going to pick it up again on the other side of the x-ray machine.

A lot of people are like that in church. You dump all your junk in the lobby, your foul mouth, and suddenly you're kind and loving, even though you hate half of New York City, and you put it in a plastic bin out in the lobby knowing that you can come in here and do the God thing, but you're going to pick it all up in the lobby on the way out before you go home. Coming to the light, but not hating your deeds. Not still married as it is to a fallen nature and not willing to have the change.

That's why the very basis of the gospel has always been this word repent. That means turn. Have a change of mind. Walk away in the strength of God from what you don't need. Trust Jesus Christ for your salvation. Open your heart and realize you can't save yourself. Trust Him to come in and be your Lord and Savior. Then in the strength of God, literally walk away. Walk away from what you don't need. In the strength and in the power of God and open your heart and hands to embrace what God will give you.

A Complete Transformation

What a journey this has been. It's been nothing but miraculous for me personally. I am a completely different man than what I was 30 years ago. If I had not come to Christ, I'd be worse than I was 30 years ago. But what a difference it has been.

I didn't care about anybody. I was a cop. I was as hard as stone. Folks, I'd go to an accident scene and draw chalk lines around dead bodies on the pavement and go eat my lunch. I didn't care about anybody. It didn't even bother me. Some cops say, well, they have to go home and drink because it bothers them. It didn't even bother me. That's hardness. That's a coldness. That's an interior thing that says, listen, I've just endured enough and I'm not going to endure anymore. I don't expect anything good out there and I'm not going to be thrown for a loop if it isn't good.

But suddenly when I come to Christ, suddenly I start caring. How do you explain that? Where did that come from? Suddenly I find myself reaching out to people that I had nothing in common with. Suddenly I find myself in meetings. I remember one night in a halfway house with a whole bunch of guys that had just come out of maximum security prison. We're all standing there arm in arm singing, "Bind us together, Lord, bind us together." How could that ever happen but in God? How could it happen? Where does it come from?

The willingness to just, when I came to Jesus, I said to my wife, "If this is real, I want the whole thing and if it's not real, I don't want any part of it. But I want the whole thing." And the Lord said, "Good, because I want the whole thing that you have and I'm going to take it from you if you'll release it and let it go and I'll give you what I am. I'll give you a new heart. I'll give you a new mind. I'll give you a new spirit. I'll give you a new ability. Give you the power to walk away from things that have gripped you and things that have become part of your character that you can never change. No matter how many resolutions you make, you'll never change them. I'll change you."

The Faithfulness of God

Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. I feel like the hymn writer that I wish I had a thousand lives to live for God, to talk about Him on this side of eternity, of what He has done, how good He has been, how faithful He is to every promise, how awesome this life has been. Has it been without struggles? Absolutely not. But I tell you, Christ has been with me. He's been faithful to me. He's been faithful to my family. He's been faithful to my children. He's been faithful and Jesus Christ will be faithful to you. He'll open your prison doors. He'll heal your wounded hearts. He'll change you sovereignly.

You and I just get into this book and we look at the promises of God. We can't make them happen. That's why they're promises. If we could make them happen, they wouldn't be promises. They'd be commandments. They're promises. We just look and say, "God, I want that." And the Lord says, "I want to give it to you." And then suddenly, step by step, line by line, this new life of Christ begins to unfold from within us. And we become, as the Bible says, new creations in Christ Jesus.

How are you going to deny that this precious brother who pushes the pulpit out every Sunday is a new creation in Christ Jesus? Who would dare to deny that? How is it possible after all these years of living a certain way, getting out of jail just to go out in the parking lot and hit a guard over the head and steal his car? How is it possible to end up in a church pushing the pulpit out on Sunday? I'll tell you, it's not possible apart from Jesus Christ. It's evidence that this is real. This is not some religious pipe dream we're talking to you about. It's not some new New Year's resolution that you have to go and try to figure this out yourself. This is life. It's eternal life. It's the love of God. It's the promise of God. It's the redemption of God. It's the new life of God. Matter of fact, it's all God and none of us.

The Love of God Demonstrated

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. I want you to think of the cross. I want you to think of the beating, the nails, the scars, the mockery. This was the Son of God. This was the man who could calm the wind in the seas with the word of His mouth. This is the one who could call Lazarus out of the grave. This was the one who could give sight to the blind. This was the one who could tell a man, "Go home. Your daughter's healed." This was a man who had incredible power. He could take a little boy's bag lunch and feed 10,000 people with it.

Yet, because He loved you, He let fallen men take Him and beat Him to the point where historians and Isaiah said He was not recognizable almost as a human being. He was so beaten. The Son of God. God so loved you. He didn't want to lose you. And you and I deserved eternal punishment for the things that we have done and for what we let ourselves become. But God so loved you. God so loved me that He took my punishment on Himself.

The Call to Decision

What does He require of me? He requires that I acknowledge that I'm a sinner. That means I've violated the laws of God. I don't live right. I have nothing in me that could get me into eternity on my own merit. He requires that I open my heart and say, "Jesus, if you did that for me, the least I can do is live for you." It requires me to open my heart and say, "Lord Jesus, you died for me. You are the Son of God. You have the lawful right to my life. I open my heart to you and I invite you in to be my Lord and Savior." And then it requires of me that I start to walk with Him and let Him bring that newness of life into me that He promises to give me.

It's really that simple. But he who does truth, it says, comes to the light. You heard it and now the time has come to make a choice. It's a choice. Nobody will ever impose eternal life on you. It's a choice you make. Can you imagine getting to the throne of God one day and you remember being here and you did not choose life. You had a chance for an eternity with God and you turned it down. How this moment would come back.

You have an opportunity to be forgiven, an opportunity to prove God. I'm not going to try to prove Him to you, prove Him yourself. Prove Him yourself. I prayed, "If you are real, come." That was my prayer. That's over 30 years ago. I've been over most of the world now telling people about Jesus Christ. If you're real, come. And He did. Prove Him. Open your heart and receive Him as your Lord and Savior.

I want to ask, who is there here? Who doesn't know Christ as their Savior? But you'd be willing this evening to say, "Pastor, I've come to the place of having to make a decision and I am deciding to live for Christ. Now I don't fully get the journey, but I know it's real. There's a witness in my heart that this is right. I'm making a decision to live for Jesus."

The Prayer of Salvation

Lord Jesus Christ, I thank you for loving me. I'm sorry for my sin. I don't want to live in disobedience to God anymore. I want this new life, this eternal life that God promises me through Jesus Christ. I make a willful choice to turn away from what is wrong and turn towards what is right. Jesus, Son of God, thank you for dying for me because you loved me. Thank you for taking my place on that cross and paying the price for the wrong that I have done.

I open my life, I open my heart, and I invite you to be Lord and Savior of my life. From this day forward, by the grace of God, I will be a follower of Jesus Christ. Thank you Lord for forgiving me and changing me and taking my life and making it something that will bring praise to you in the earth. I look forward with anticipation to the kind of a person that you will make me to be. I will give you all the praise and all the glory for all the good things that you will do in my life. I will follow you. I love you and I believe in you.

Thank you Father for this salvation. My name is written in heaven. I am a child of God because you said that. I'm forgiven, I'm saved, and I will be changed. I believe it in Jesus' name.