Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Are You Living in the Light? | The Gospels | Luke 11:33–55

Episode Date: April 21, 2026

What does it really mean to be "light"? What does Jesus say about the danger of outward obedience without inward change? And how do we become people who actually reflect his goodness, righteousness, and truth? In today’s episode, Tanya shares how Luke 11:33–55 reveals that real light comes from a transformed heart and calls us to walk closely with Jesus so his light shines through us. Read the Bible with us in 2026! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: Luke 11:33–55

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Tanya Wilmeth. I just wonder if someone follows you around for a week, if they were to sit in on your conversations and read your text and listen to how you talk about people when they aren't there, what would they say? What would they say about you? What would they say about me? Would they say you brought something different into the room? One of the things that I like to pray for with my family is that we, they, all of us will be light wherever we go. If you think about all the places and connections and conversations, text and multiply by a family of six, that has up to lots of opportunities to be something different than what the world expects. There are so many small ordinary moments in a week where you can reflect something better or you can just go along with what's normal. Now, I don't think we always get this right.

But when we ask God to help us, I think he honors that because he is light. and he unites himself with us so that we can be his light in all the places he has us. I think he can even work through us to be light, thank goodness, when we mess up, when we replay a conversation later and wish we'd set something differently, or when we realized we missed an opportunity entirely. Yesterday was Easter morning, and the light was so bright on our way to church that we were working hard to see the road in the cars ahead of us. It was that kind of bright light that comes in just the right angle

when you keep adjusting, like pulling the visor down, leaning forward a little, squinting, because everything is just flooded with light. And after Friday's Good Friday Service, where we leave the sanctuary in dimmed light and subdued silence, that brightness felt like more than just a weather thing. It felt like a preview of what Easter was going to be, what it's meant to be. Bright, colors, lively music, noise, joy. The contrast between Friday and Sunday is supposed to show us what happened at the resurrection. The light of the world came into the world and overcame darkness on the cross.

Jesus defeated sin and death and we live in the hope of the resurrection, not just as an idea, but as something that changes how we see everything. So we have all of this context when we come together to read Luke Chapter 11. We're on this side of the cross. We know what Jesus has accomplished, and we read Luke 11, with the knowledge as we try to lean into what he wanted the people to understand while he was teaching. So what is light? And are you light? And how do you know? These are the questions we're exploring today in the last half of Luke chapter 11. First, what is light? Well, Jesus uses a word picture to

explain what it means to share his light. He says, no one lights a lamp and puts it in the cellar or under a basket, but on a lampstand, so that those who come in may see its light. It's such a simple image, but it makes a very clear point. A light is meant to be seen. It's meant to affect the space around it. And that connects to what we mentioned earlier about how I like to pray for our family to be light as we go into class, to practice, to our friends' houses, out for a round of golf or a run.

Back up, no one in my family plays golf, um, coffee date. But think about where you are. What are those places for you? I think we all understand what this means. If we have the light of Jesus in us, why would we try to be otherwise? Or maybe what are the moments where we do try to be otherwise? Where we shrink back, where we go quiet, where we just go along with what everyone else is doing because it's easier. To help answer that, it's helpful to compare Jesus' words about light to Paul's teaching in Ephesians 5. Paul says, for once you were darkness, but now you are light in the world. Walk as children of light, for the fruit of light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth. There are a few really important things in that if we slow down. First, according to Paul, when we're united with

Christ, we become light as he is light. Second, we're called to walk as children of light, which means this is ongoing. It's a process, something that we should be aware of, we should be praying about, something that we should be talking to God and asking him to help us with over time. And then third, Paul defines light. He tells us that it is goodness, or that the fruit of light is goodness, righteousness, and truth. Those are the qualities of light. And this is where it gets personal because you and I do this battle in our heads. We leave a conversation and we replay it. Was I light in that room? Did I handle that the right way? Why did I say that? Or why didn't I say something? We're not alone in that, but how we handle it matters. If we're way too hard on

ourselves, if we're always focused on failure, we can end up so full of guilt and regret that our light feels dimmed before we even step into the next situation. But if we have those battles and we engage in them honestly, that's actually part of what Paul is talking about when he says to walk as children of light. We're recognizing that we're still full of sin, but we've been given the power of Christ, we've been given His Holy Spirit, and he can work through our failures to still be light in the places where we mess up. Now, if we're not having battle at all, then we're really not in a good spot. We're going to get to that in a second. If we assume we're always good. If we assume we're always right, if we're always assuming we're aligned with truth, then we're deceived. And that leads

us to the next question. Are you light? Now, Jesus continues the word picture. He says when your eye is healthy, your whole body is also full of light. But when it is bad, your body is also full of darkness. Take care then that the light in you is not darkness. And Lynn Luke gives us a real life example. He says, while Jesus is still speaking, a Pharisee invites him to dine with him. So Jesus goes in and he reclines at the table. And the Pharisee notices something. Jesus did not perform the ritual washing before dinner.

Now this was not something that was required by Old Testament law. This was something that had been added as a ceremonial practice meant to show that someone was clean. And it had become a visible marker of righteousness. So when Jesus skips it, the Pharisee isn't just noticing a small detail. He's questioning what kind of teacher Jesus really is. And Jesus addresses it. He says, now you Pharisees, clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and evil.

It's another word picture, but this one is really uncomfortable, because Jesus is pointing out the gap between appearance and reality. You can polish the outside of something and make it look great. but that doesn't change what's actually inside. And then he goes on to describe how the Pharisees were really careful about outward things, like tithing to the exact percentage, following visible things like sitting in the right place in the sanctuary. But they were neglecting justice and love. They loved recognition and being seen as righteous.

But there was no corresponding change in the heart, and the fruit of what they were doing showed that. they had the light of the world sitting right in front of them reclining at the table, but instead of coming to him to have their hearts made clean, they were measuring him against their own expectations. And that gets us to our last question. How do you know if you are light? A few years ago, I saw a college football coach.

He thought he was off camera, but he mouthed something just really derogatory about the female athletes who had just been recognized. It was one of those moments where you could read his lips enough to know what he said, and I remember thinking, I wonder if he would have said that if he knew people could see it. And then almost immediately I thought, when do I say things? I would never say if the people I was talking about could hear me.

Not on camera, but just in normal everyday conversations. And then that leads to, what am I thinking those things in my heart and just not even saying? them. We talk about hypocrites, and we act like the church is full of them, ourselves included, and in some ways that's true. But more accurately, the church is made up of sinners, everyone included. The difference is not that some people are perfect and others aren't. It's whether we recognize how much we need a savior. Because those who recognize how far they fall short of goodness, righteousness, and truth don't try to present themselves.

as the source of those things, they don't try to be perfect or show that they are. But they hide themselves in their Savior who is perfect, perfectly good, perfectly righteous, and all source of truth. And when we give our sin to Him, we find our hope to be light in Him. We know that we can't be perfect, but we ask Him to grow us. We ask Him to help us be His children who are walking in light and not in darkness. If that describes, you, Jesus says, your eye is the lamp of the body. If your whole body is full of light, it will be entirely illuminated as when a lamp shines its light on you. This should really encourage you, especially when you're doing battle with yourself. And it should motivate you to keep

going. Keep having the conversations. Keep inviting people to come. Keep forgiving. Keep listening. Keep relating. It's not going to be perfect, but we have a better hope. We have a Savior who lives in us and shines through us. And most of the time, we don't even see the full impact of what he's doing. We won't know what a conversation meant to someone or what a moment of honesty or kindness did in someone's life. Our job is to walk as children of light, to stay tethered to our Savior, to let him keep shaping us, to trust that he's working through us in ways that go far beyond what we can understand. And when we wonder, am I really making difference? Stay in the light and let him shine through you.