John 3:20 ESV For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

Many if not most of you have had this experience. You saw it when you asked for help and rescue from an evil abuser. Friends, fellow church members, family members, turned on you and abandoned you. Why?

Over the years I have observed a very common dynamic, and I have experienced it myself many times. Friends. Seemingly good friends. People whose friendship you enjoyed for even years. People you might have even called your best friend. But then suddenly – and I mean with all caps and boldface, SUDDENLY, virtually overnight, they rejected you and betrayed you. It was like some switch got thrown in their brain so that they didn’t even seem to be the person they were before.

But they were that person. It now simply becomes evident.

Here is what I conclude happens in so many of these cases. These people were not growing in Christ. They may well have not even been born again. And if you were pressing on, growing in your knowledge of and love for the Lord, you were growing day by day as light in the Lord. Your light, you might say (ie, Christ) grew brighter and brighter.

Now think about it. As this was happening in you, it was not happening in them. And at some point – it no doubt began in them imperceptibly – at some point the darkness in them started getting pretty uncomfortable. As John says in the verse above. darkness cannot tolerate the light. Light exposes the thing for what it really is.

So at that moment of departure, these people just couldn’t stand you anymore. They were done with you as if they had never known you at all.

Moral of the story? Anyone who is not truly growing in Christ, anyone whose profession of Christ is fake (like the seed that sprouts up right away but has no root), is not going to be a safe person to have a relationship with. If you cannot see a “friend” actually growing in the Lord (the counterfeit admittedly can be hard to detect), then beware. Because the moment will surely come when that one who you loved and who you thought loved you, will be done with you.

When this happens, though it is painful, be encouraged. It is a mark that you really are in Christ.