A Light in the Darkness

Light is a powerful thing.

Do you realize that light ALWAYS overpowers darkness?  When it is pitch black, one light interrupts that darkness.  Even a faint light will allow you to make out shadows.  In the battle of darkness and light, light always wins.

Jesus is the light of the world.  He brings hope and direction to a darkened place where sin rules.  His light always overpowers the darkness.  Jesus always wins.

Here's the cool thing:  Jesus places that very same, powerful light inside of us when we commit our lives to following him.  In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus calls his followers the light of the world.  Just as we are to be salt, flavoring the world with Jesus and preserving his teachings, we are to be light, shining a bright glow of Jesus on a darkened world.  We are to show others the hope that Jesus gives us. 

In dark room, we wouldn't cover up the light.  We're not going to turn on a lamp, then immediately place a dark covering over it.  Just the same, we're not going to shroud our ceilings with black cloth, then turn on the lights.  It would do no good.  In the same way, Jesus doesn't want us to hide our light.

Jesus calls us to be bold - to not shrink away from sharing Christ.  In Luke 9:26, Jesus goes even further, saying, if we are ashamed for Christ, he will be ashamed of us.  Jesus wants us to BOLDLY share the light of Christ with others, not to shamefully hide his presence from others.

Yet, how often do we?  We have an opportunity to tell someone about Jesus, but we fear rejection and say nothing.  We can sit with an unwanted person at the cafeteria or a party, and instead, we choose to hang out with our friends.  We can make a stand against injustice, but tell ourselves it's somebody else's fight.  

If we are the light of the world, we need to shine brightly in the darkness.  Jesus takes our lives and places his light in it.  It's up to us to reveal that light to others.

Will you?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Devotion to a false god

Image
Last week, at Disney World, I went to retrieve our stroller from the stroller parking section.  As I searched among the hundred or so strollers, I finally found mine and started to move it.  As I pulled, it snagged on a woman's garment.  Panicked, I looked up and saw it was a Muslim women in full Muslin dress.  Her body was completely covered.  Only a slit for her eyes was visible.  I was careful not to yank, and I tried to apologize as the hook of the handle caught part of her garment.  She didn't say a word and we both quietly went on our ways. As I walked away, I felt pity on her.  For one, it's Disney World in June in Florida.  I strode along in shorts and a very thin T-shirt.  Both were soaked in sweat.  I had already consumed two bottles of water and still felt weary.  She was dressed head to toe in heavy garments.  I can't imagine how hot she was pushing a stroller with two kids through a mass of people in humid air and on hot pavement. Secondly, she dres
Read more

Time for an examination

Image
For my seminary class on counseling, I had to read a book about anxiety and worry.  In the book, the author, Archibald Hart, made the case that sometimes worry can be good. He gave the example of worrying about an illness - in the case a spot on the skin that could be cancerous.  Since skin cancer is a very real, and deadly, possibility, your worrying about it should spurn you to have it examined.  In that case, it's a healthy form of worrying.  It's more natural concern than worry, even when we dwell on it.  It's our brain's mechanism to check out anomalous things. For me, Matthew 7:21-23 is one of those "spots" you need to worry about.  In the passage, Jesus says many people who drive out demons, preach, teach and do miracles will not gain access into the Kingdom of Heaven.  They'll have all the outward signs of a believer but have no real, genuine relationship with Jesus Christ. That's a very scary proposition.  It addresses those of us who
Read more

God Uses Conflict

Image
I am not a big fan of conflict.  I don't know many people that are. Yet, one thing I learned in my communication classes in college is that in any human relationship or interaction, conflict is inevitable and unavoidable.  In fact, I teach in my marriage counseling that conflict, and how we handle it, can even strengthen our marriages. Conflict is not always a bad thing.  Through conflict, we see new points of view.  We grow as we weather the storm. We even strengthen our resolve. And, at time, God brings conflict into your life in order to move you from where you are to where he wants you to be. That's what happened with the Israelites.  In Exodus 14, we see that God moves to the Jewish people to the once place that means an unavoidable conflict with Egypt.  Surrounded by the Egyptian army, an impassible terrain and the Red Sea, Israel is forced into a confrontation with the Egyptian army.  They have no where to run and ultimately must listen to God as he directs the
Read more