Christopher’s Substack
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Pastor Chris White says to all of you: HELLO MY FRIENDS. May the Lord bless you today.
HOLA MIS AMIGOS. Que el Señor los bendiga.
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.”
—1 John 3:1–2
There’s something deeply grounding about knowing where you’re going.
If you’ve ever been lost while driving—especially before GPS—you know the feeling. Every turn feels heavier than it should. Every mile adds low-grade anxiety. But the moment you recognize a landmark or see a familiar exit sign, your shoulders relax. You’re still on the road, but now you know where the road leads.
That kind of clarity brings peace.
As we close this series on The Four Peaces of the Cross, we come to the final peace—a peace that speaks not just to our emotions, but to our understanding of reality itself. I call it enlightenment.
A Brief Recap of the Journey
We began with shalom—God’s gift of wholeness. Not the peace of easy circumstances, but the peace that flows from a healed heart.
Then we moved to relief—the lifting of guilt and condemnation. When God forgives, He does not keep a quiet file open “just in case.” Grace means the case is closed.
The third peace was validation—the assurance that you matter. You matter enough that God sent His Son so that you might live. That truth settles the question of worth once and for all.
Now we arrive at the fourth and final peace: enlightenment.
Light in a Confusing World
In Scripture, enlightenment is not about secret knowledge or spiritual superiority. It’s about moving out of darkness—out of futile thinking, misplaced worship, and misguided goals—and into truth.
The Bible describes darkness as chasing the wrong gods, pursuing the wrong goods, and aiming at the wrong ends. It’s not that people don’t try to make sense of life; it’s that they often answer the wrong questions with the wrong answers.
Virtually every religion and philosophy tries to answer three core questions:
- Who am I?
- Why am I here?
- Where am I going?
How well these questions are answered determines how much peace—or confusion—a worldview produces.
Now, a quick but necessary side note: feeling satisfied with an answer does not automatically make it true. You might find the idea comforting that humanity was seeded by aliens millions of years ago, or that we descend from invisible people living beneath Mount Shasta in a secret underground city. Those theories might be imaginative, even entertaining—but truth is its own thing.
Truth corresponds to reality.
And while not every satisfying idea is true, real truth does satisfy—because it fits the world as it actually is.
The Clarity the Cross Brings
The cross does not leave us guessing about life’s biggest questions.
Who are you?
You are a child of God.
Why are you here?
To grow into that reality—to learn what it means to live as His beloved son or daughter.
Where are you going?
You are going to be with the Lord, to share in His life and glory.
As John tells us, we don’t yet see the full picture. What we will be hasn’t fully appeared. Right now, our understanding is partial, our growth uneven, our faith sometimes wobbly. But the destination is clear: we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is.
That future shapes the present. We don’t drift aimlessly through life. We are being formed—slowly, patiently, faithfully—into the image of Christ.
St. Athanasius said it this way: Christ became man so that man might become like Christ. Not divine by nature, but restored by grace. Whole. Alive. Fully human as God intended.
Knowing Whose You Are
In the end, the most important question is not just who am I? but whose am I?
We belong to Christ. Not because we earned it. Not because we proved ourselves worthy. But because He purchased us with His blood on the cross.
That changes everything.
It gives direction to our lives, meaning to our struggles, and hope that stretches beyond this present moment. The cross enlightens us—not with abstract ideas, but with a lived truth: we are God’s children now, and we are becoming what we were made to be.
May you grow into that light.
May you walk in that peace.
May you become all the Lord desires you to be.
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