Summary

Join Tamara K. Anderson and the Women Warriors of Light advisory board as they dive into the powerful message of Romans 13:12-14, which invites us to cast off darkness, put on the armor of light, and embrace the Lord Jesus Christ. This year’s theme centers on the transformative potential of aligning our lives with Christ’s teachings. The discussion highlights the significance of being intentional about inviting light into our lives and the blessings that follow such choices. With insights ranging from the importance of community to the actionable steps we can take to illuminate our paths, the women share personal experiences and scriptural wisdom. Prepare for a lively conversation filled with humor, inspiration, and practical advice on how to walk in the light amidst the challenges of life.

Takeaways

• We are invited to actively cast off darkness and put on the armor of light, embracing Jesus's teachings.
• Putting on the Lord Jesus Christ means aligning our lives with his light and love.
• In times of darkness, trusting in Jesus can illuminate our paths and provide comfort.
• Seeking blessings from God’s invitations can transform our lives and strengthen our faith.
• We can combat negative thoughts by intentionally focusing on good and virtuous things.
• The community of women supports each other in their journeys to embody light and love.

Host & Guests

Tamara K. Anderson

Sandy Falter

Amanda Powell

Amy Johnson

Jessica Cromar

Tiffany Fletcher

Wendi Christensen

Jen Wright

Jerusha Smith

Transcript

If you’d like to read the transcript of today’s episode, you can find it on our Women Warriors of Light website blog.

https://www.womenwarriorsoflight.com/blog/lighten-up-cast-off-darkness-and-put-on-jesus

Have you ever felt God calling you to maybe step up, improve, be better, maybe cast off more darkness and bring in more light? Today we're going to talk about how we can do that with Jesus's help. So stay tuned and there's some amazing blessings attached to it.Just wait and see.

Welcome to Bible Women in Bathrobes, the podcast where faith meets comfort.Join us Tuesday morning as the gals from Women warriors of Light and their guests guests don bathrobes and dive into the inspiring stories of women in the Bible and the teachings of Jesus Christ. From Esther's bravery to the Sermon on the Mount, we explore it all with warmth, laughter, sisterhood and maybe even a few sleepy eyed moments.

Tune in live or at your leisure as we learn lessons from Scripture which empower women today.

Welcome to another episode of Bible Women in Bathrobes. I'm your host Tamara K. Anderson and today I've got something special planned for you.

It's so good.

So I'm first gonna share with you the verses and I'm gonna read them to you because they are something, as I tell on the story, they are something that really meant something to me. And I'll explain why. In the recording they're found in Romans chapter 13 and it's verses 12, 13 and 14.

But there's one particular part in 14 that just resonated with me. It says, the night is far spent, the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness and let us put on the armor of light.

Let us walk honestly as in the day, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ and make not provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof. And that favorite part that really resonated with me was putting on the Lord Jesus Christ casting off darkness.

And now I'm going to introduce the members of my advisory board commenting on these verses and their insights. But I thought we'd have just a quick discussion.

As I was reading my scriptures this past week, I happened to stop stumble upon this verse in Romans or verses in Romans and I was like, oh.

And right after I stumbled upon this verse I went on a walk and like it wouldn't go out of my head and it just kept going and going and playing in my brain. And all of a sudden God just whispered, that's your theme for the year. And I put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I thought, that's a good theme.

Anyway, so I kind of tacked on the beginning of it from two verses before. Cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so I thought I'd just open this for maybe a 10 minute discussion on any thoughts that you've had as far as how we can cast out darkness and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. Any thoughts? Anyone want to kick us off? I have some thoughts. Go ahead. Sandy.

The thing that I love is it's an invitation. And I think as we look forward, we can invite, right? It's as simple as inviting. And so he invites us to cast out darkness.

He invites us to put on light. And I love the symbol of light and Christ. But light casts out darkness.

If we choose to put on, you know, we've been invited to, then, then we can be a warrior of light, right? We can, that can be our shield and our protection and, and where light is, darkness can exist. So I love that it's an imitation.

And I think that's something that we.

Can kind of look forward to is inviting others into that.

Yeah, wonderful. Thank you so much, Sandy. Anyone else have a comment? Let's See, Amanda?

Yeah, it makes me with that, Sandy, when you said the invitation, it made.

Me think of when I taught seminary.

One thing that we always taught the.

Students to do was when there's an invitation, look for the blessings.

There's going to be a blessing if you do. So my thought would be, okay, if.

We'Re going to put on the Lord.

Jesus Christ, how is that going to change us?

What are the blessings that are about to flood into our lives because of this one invitation?

I love this comment by Amanda. To look for the blessing whenever there's an invitation, whenever God issues an invitation, he says, look.

She said to look for the blessing. And so I then spent some time today looking at the word light and seeing what blessings are attached to it and putting on Jesus. From Psalm 27:1.

The Lord is my light, whom shall I fear? And the whole chapter in that section of Psalms is about being courageous and not afraid. Because we have, we put on Christ, right?

Another chapter in Psalm, Psalm 36:9. In thy light shall we see light. So when we are close to Jesus, when we put on Jesus and his light, we, we see light, we give light, we bring light.

It's Amazing. Okay. Another promise. Unto the upright, there ariseth light in the darkness. And that's from Psalm 112. 4.

So when you are trying to do what's best, when you're aligning your ways with Jesus, you have light in the dark times. Oh, what a powerful promise. I know I've had dark times, and I'm thankful God has been with me in those times. From Psalm 119, 105.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path. And Jerusha has a comment on that coming up that you will absolutely love. So when we have Jesus, he lights our path.

In Micah, chapter seven, verse eight, I sit in darkness. The Lord shall be a light again. That reassurance that if you're in dark times, God can be a light to you.

The famous verse from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, chapter 5, verses 14 through 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven.

So others watching you will turn and glorify God. How great is that blessing? In John, chapter one, verse four, this is John talking about Jesus Christ.

He says, in him was life, and the life was the light of man. So as we get closer to Jesus, he gives us more light and life. Doesn't that sound beautiful? So amazing. So amazing. John, chapter 8, verse 12.

I am the light of the world. That's Jesus talking. Now. Listen to this promise. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. So beautiful.

Echoing a lot of what we've read in the Old Testament New that Jesus is light in dark times, that Jesus brings light to our life. Okay, this was one of my favorite ones, and it's at the end of the New Testament. This is coming from Revelations, chapter 21.

And in this chapter, it's so cool. It talks about the rewards of those who overcome all things and kind of those who have yoked themselves to Christ, those who have put on Christ.

It says in verse seven, he that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be my son or daughter. I'm going to tack on there. We inherit all things with. With Jesus.

And get this, at the very end Here in verse 23, it talks about Jesus being the light of this celestial world. It says, 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. So Jesus is the light of this celestial world. And here's the promise. This is what we're working for. And the nations of them which are saved shall.

Shall walk in the light of it. And I love this.

This is the ultimate blessing of putting on Jesus Christ and casting off darkness, is that we will be with him in that glorious, eternal world after.

So I love that Amanda invited us to look for the blessings of putting on Jesus Christ, because when I look for them, they buoyed my soul so very much. AMY and then, Jessica.

When you look.

At the spots of the scripture that you left out, it actually gives us really good information about how to do what he's suggesting by telling us what not to do. And so I love that script, that section of Scriptures, because it says, let us walk honestly as in the day.

And I love that because nothing really can hide in the daylight. In the dark, we can hide, but not in the daylight, not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.

And I love that because we really have just.

If we see the world around us as so full of strife, if we can avoid strife and contention and those types of things, then I think we're going to see that that allows the Spirit to come in and allows Jesus Christ to be a part of us just because of just that very virtue of being honest and a peacemaker.

And on Sunday, I was talking about with people about being a peacemaker, and I have decided in my world I'm going to just start calling it peace creating, because I think we really, we don't really understand how much work and how much effort for the most of us, it takes to create peace.

I love that. I love that so much. Okay, Jessica and then Tiffany.

When I studied the Scripture, I thought about this amazing physics lesson that I learned that has been really powerful in my understanding of, like, drawing closer to God. So I actually learned this in a science setting from a astrophysicist.

And she talked about how everything in the universe puts out light or has light in it. And the way that we can. And then later I researched this, but everything has light.

And the way that we can absorb light or energy from other things is by having the same wavelength. So when two things in the universe have the same wavelength, then light will be absorbed, and energy, Heat is produced or energy is produced.

And so it just made me realize, like, when we're invited to do the works, casting off the works of darkness, really what we're being called to do is do the works of light. And as we align ourselves more with God's ways, then we absorb more of his light, and we radiate his energy. And the.

The very fact that this came from a astrophysicist just tickled my. My, my mind so much. And I loved the principle how down to science and up to our spiritual experiences, it is the same, but we really have to like.

I like how the verse is talking about coming out of dark, the darkness of sleep. It's talking about waking up from the night. And sometimes it just.

We just need to, like, get active in doing something intentional and moving towards being aligned with that frequency where we can absorb his light.

I love what Jessica said there in her comment. She said, when we align more with his ways, we absorb more of his light. And so I'm like, oh, my gosh, how can I do this? I want more of his light.

How can I walk more in his ways? And that just makes me think of the importance of casting off darkness, kind of like the women have been talking about.

Maybe that's a good question we can ask in our prayers. Dear God, how can I cast out more darkness and bring in more light and then do the things that he prompts us to do?

You know, maybe it's not watching this kind of movie anymore. Maybe not reading this kind of book. I don't know what it will be for you, but I know I've tried this before.

I've asked God to help me cast out things that are dragging me down, and I've been surprised at what he inspires me to do. So try that. It's pretty great.

I love that. I. Have any of you read the book, the Spiritual Physics of Light? It talks about that very same principle, Jessica. And it's so, so good. And.

And it talks about how we each put out information with our thoughts. And this kind of goes with what Amy was talking about. Like. Like this invitation isn't like physical armor. It's not like us putting on physical armor.

It is. It is really armored for our mind. It is because that is the final battleground for the adversary, right? Like, it's in our minds where.

Where all of the negative things come, the depression, the hard things. That all starts in the thoughts that we tell ourselves. And so I'm.

And I know that there's chronic depression, but I'm just talking about those really hard days, right, when you. When your thoughts lead you to a dark place.

And.

And this is really what it's talking about, is. Is live in the light. Live in a place where. Where the things that we are doing.

Rather than having those dark thoughts, we are combating them with, with thoughts of light.

Right?

We are creating a place for our thoughts to go. Like Boyd K. Packer gave a talk in the 70s that was called inspiring music worthy thoughts.

And he talked about the importance of having a place for your thoughts to go. But in there, there is a beautiful quote, one of my favorites. It said, well, virtue by choice cannot associate with filth.

Evil cannot tolerate the presence of light.

So the more we learn to put on this, this armor of light in our minds and the more we radiate that light by the good things that we're doing and the good thoughts that we feeding ourselves, the more we're going to combat the darkness in the world and the more we're going to help fight the adversary and the less his lies are going to infiltrate our mind because we have that armor of light and that sh. And protection that is keeping us from it. So I, I like, I'm literally writing a book about this. I think I told you about that, Tamra.

Like I'm literally writing book called Clothed in the Armor of Light.

And I'm so excited for this year, see where it comes because this to me is one of the most amazing things that we can do in this time, in, at this time in our day is to be able to combat it and, and shield our minds with light.

I love what Tiffany said here and how that the, the armor of light is, it can be a shield for our mind and that the final battleground, especially in the war against the adversary, is often taking place in our mind and in our thoughts and that we can combat dark thoughts with light. And just pausing to think about that, think about the scriptures and how they add light to your life.

Maybe memorize that verse In Romans, chapter 13, verse 14, Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ. If you have a dark thought, say I'm putting on Jesus Christ. I'm casting this dark thought out. Think how powerful that would be.

Every time we had a negative thought or something that was trying to drag us down.

I'm going to cast out this dark thought and I'm going to put on Jesus Christ and bring him into my life and bring him into my mind and my heart and my soul. That would be powerful. Think how many battles we would win if we just had that kind of positive thinking.

And I also wanted to comment on what Tiffany said that this is in regards to the. Just the daily battles.

If you struggle with major depression, please get professional help because major depression cannot be fixed by just Changing our thoughts. It's. It's something that needs professional help, so be sure to get that help.

I think just the sharing of it, the sharing of light with others and helping them find it is for me how I find it too.

Just being able to connect with people who need light and to try and share with each other the ways in which we feel his light that we find his light. And sharing that then with others who are lacking that light is for me, a great way to find it myself.

Because sometimes I find in those moments I didn't know I was lacking, and I truly was. All right, Wendi.

Well, first of all, I have to say I love everything that you guys are sharing. It's so fun. It's so amazing.

And I think along with everything that everyone has said is just, we live in a beautiful place, but it's also a fallen place that we live in. And so, you know, when it's casting off, can't remember the exact scripture. Read the scripture again. It's just putting on Jesus. I think that's.

That's a big part of bringing that lie, like you guys have all said, because we're in a fallen state. And part of becoming unfallen is embracing everything.

Christ, right, embracing everything that he is and who he is helps us to gain more and more of that light.

Like.

Like Jessica was saying. Jessica, right, Was saying that we continue to bring in all of that light and build upon that light and vibrate on those higher levels.

We're becoming more Christlike as we vibrate closer and closer to his level, right? Because we've all fallen from that state. We're trying to get back, and we're vibrating on that.

And that comes through that light that we gain and that we share and that we embrace. As we embrace everything that's Christ, everything about him, and become more and more and more like Him.

And our light gets brighter and stronger because we are starting to emulate him and become like him in that light and that goodness.

I love that Wendi said, embrace everything that is Christ. Isn't that beautiful? Just gather it to you. And you might say, well, how can I know?

And I would just answer everything that brings good and more light into your life. The verse that comes to mind when we talk about this is found in Philippians 4. 8. And here's what Paul says.

He says, finally, brethren, I'm going to say, sisters, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, just pure, lovely, good report, virtuous. If there be any praise, think on these things. And so those, the words that he gives us are good words if it's true. Honest, just pure. Lovely.

Good report. Virtue, praise. Think on these things. So those are the things that we need to embrace. As Wende says, wonderful.

All right, looks like Jenny has her hand up. Jen, did you have something you wanted to share?

I did. So when I think about light, one of the things that I like to think about is where it appears in other scriptures.

And so we already know that he's the light and life of the world. And we know that when we are yoked with him that our burdens may be light.

And I think that light doesn't, in that context, doesn't necessarily have to mean weight. I think that it means that our burdens are aligned with his. His is the work of light and shining love and service, right?

To emulate the way that he was in life. And so when you start to look at it in that context, it becomes not about a battle, but about sharing light and protecting others.

And I just think it's such marvelous direction for life in how to embrace where we are and each other and to combat the things that would turn us to an inward perspective or to a dark perspective. And so I really, I like where this discussion has gone, but I love that about Christ. I love that he's about that.

Love it, love it.

But I had a thought actually, while you were speaking, Tamara, about light, about the, you know, the scripture, about the lamp unto your feet. And I was thinking about it when I was doing that on the blog, I thought, you know what, if you have a lamp, you can't see very far.

A lamp doesn't cast a lot of light very far, but it casts it far enough that you can see your next couple of steps, or your next step at least.

And I thought, of course, that's purposeful because, you know, Heavenly Father wants us to know that we're dependent on him and if we could see everything, we wouldn't need Him. But we do need Him.

And so he wants us to just keep taking that one step at a time and he will keep lighting the way and he can see the end from the beginning. So it's, it's a way to bind us to him and to help us to know that we need to co create this life with Him.

And I love that because sometimes we forget that we're not dependent on the arm of flesh, so to speak, or people around us, and we start to think, oh no, what am I going to do if, you know, so and so doesn't do X, Y and Z, But Ultimately, that's not the point. The point is that Heavenly Father has got you regardless and he can do X, Y and Z and every other letter of the Alphabet.

So.

So true. I love that. That is a beautiful insight. Thank you so much for sharing it. I love what Jerusha said here about taking one step at a time.

To me, that means when we put on Jesus Christ, we are binding ourselves to him and we are trusting him, trusting the path that we're on.

Even when that path looks hard and is hard and it's really, really dark that we keep clinging to Jesus, we put him on, we walk with him every step of the way, and he will help us. He will light that path one step at a time.

And this is especially significant knowing Jerusha has walked a cancer journey and come through with God's help. It's especially significant to me knowing that Jesus walked with me even when I was mad at Him.

When my kids were diagnosed with autism, I could not have done it without him, even though I was mad at him for a while, because that was not the path that I wanted to be on.

But whatever your path is, know that walking it with Jesus, whether you're happy with him or whether you're mad at him at the time, makes it easier to take the next step because he'll be there with you. You're not ever walking it alone. I will say this. As we push back darkness more, it paints a bigger target on our back for the adversary.

So don't be surprised by that. And it gives us the that opportunity to work harder to cast out, cast off darkness as we read in our Bible verse today, and to put on Jesus Christ.

And just remember that light can always, always overcome darkness. And he will bless you in whatever you're doing, in whatever ministry he has called you to. This is our theme for Women warriors of Light this year.

To cast off darkness and to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. And I invite you to do that with us this year to put on the Lord Jesus Christ and let him lighten your day and your life.

Ask him what you can cast off and claim those promises that we read about all throughout the Old and New Testament, because those promises are real. I love Jesus and I'm so thankful to have him walking beside me. Thanks for tuning in to Bible Women and Bathrobes hosted by Women warriors of Light.

We've loved exploring the stories of remarkable women or the teaching of the Savior today with you.

If today's episode brought someone special to mind, be sure to spread the word and don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a moment of inspiration and sisterhood. Just a friendly reminder. All opinions we share are entirely personal as we are trying to decipher and apply Bible teachings just like you are.

Until next time, stay faithful and may your journey be blessed and illuminated by God's love.