Batman

Thinking back on my childhood days, I remember times in my youthful enthusiasm when I would run across something that really caught my interest. In one of these experiences, I discovered, of all things, a bat nestled in under some exterior boards on our garage. The bat, I decided, was an intrusion into my yard and play area and so needed to be chased away. So, I grabbed up a stick and proceeded to poke and prod at the poor bat trying to force him out of his home of darkness.
What struck me about this experience was the bat’s reaction to all of the excitement. The bat, instead of flying away, became almost paralyzed and just sat there stunned. It was very unaccustomed to being disturbed at this time of the day. After all, it was a creature of the night, and unable to deal with the light of day! When confronted with the light, all it could do was grope around and hope for darkness to engulf it once again.
Like mice, dogs, cats, and elephants, bats are mammals. That is, they feed their babies milk that is made in the body of the mother. But bats are the only mammals that can fly.
Most species of bats are very nocturnal, that is, active at night but hiding from the light in inactivity during the day. They are true “creatures of the night”.
UNFORTUNATELY, MANY PEOPLE, WHEN CONFRONTED WITH THE LIGHT OF GOD’S TRUTH, HAVE SIMILAR REACTIONS TO THAT OF THE BAT.
Jesus spoke of this in John 3:19—21:
The Light from heaven came into the world, but they loved the darkness more than the Light, for their deeds were evil. They hated the heavenly Light because they wanted to sin in the darkness. They stayed away from that Light for fear their sins would be exposed and they would be punished. But those doing right come gladly to the Light to let everyone see that they are doing what God wants them to.” (Living Bible)
Jesus said that reborn Christians are reflections of God’s heavenly Light to the world around them: “You are the world‘s light - a city on a hill, glowing in the night for all to see. Don’t hide your light! Let it shine for all; let your good deeds glow for all to see, so that they will praise your heavenly Father.” (Matthew 5:14-16 Living Bible). Just as the moon has no light source of itself but reflects the light of the sun, Christians have no righteousness of themselves but can only reflect the righteousness of Christ.
Back to the bat.
How can we help the bat to face the light of day and not naturally grope for the darkness? WE CAN’T! The key is not trying to condition the bat to light. No, the bat is a creature of the night, AND WILL ALWAYS BE! For the bat to face the light, it must die and become something else.
So it is with BATMEN! To face the Light of Truth, we can’t be spiritual bats - creatures of the spiritual darkness. We must become new creatures - by dying and being born again! That’s the only way we can face the Light without groping for the darkness. As Romans 8:7 declares: “Because the carnal mind (the darkened mind of a spiritual batman) is enmity against God. For it is not subject to the law of God (the Light of God‘s Truth), neither indeed CAN BE!”
Human beings have been created to bask in the Light of God, to be a creature of the day, to trust in and reflect the righteousness of God through the indwelling Christ.
But through the fall of our first parents, the whole human race took on the nature of darkness - we became BATMEN. Now a bat thinks that it is doing pretty well in the darkness. It is feeding and surviving. The bat has no realization of the benefits of the light. There is a natural fear of the light. Daytime requires a retreat to dark caves and crevices.
God is anxious to make a miraculous change in batmen - an instant death and rebirth as a creature of the Light. No more nature of darkness, but rather the nature of God our Father is birthed right within men. Jesus Christ was the first of this new species of men, and whoever calls on Christ as Savior and Lord of his life becomes this new species too.
How many "batmen" do you know? Do you poke sticks at them like I did at the bat? We need to encourage the "batmen" in our lives to see that they need a change of nature by a new birth.
All that batmen have to do is ASK to live in the Light, and God will exchange their dark nature and make them new creatures. Christianity is not a changed life but rather an exchanged life.

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