Knowledge Seeker
  • Home
  • Articles

Shine (Two Minutes to Read)

6/1/2016

 
I was preparing for a Bible study one day and decided to do it based upon Matthew 5:16 where Matthew wrote: “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.”

In contemplating the topic, I started thinking about how we can’t generate darkness. Meaning if someone asked what tools you’ll need to create darkness there isn't anything you can use to generate it. The only way we can contribute to darkness is to take something away that already exist, and that is light.

This thought process intrigued me because in order for us to affect darkness we can either shine a light on it which would make it disappear or we can pull our light away and allow darkness to show itself because it’s already there…we didn’t create it.

Then I thought about our responsibility to let our light shine and realized that Matthew didn’t say make your light shine; these words have different meanings. “Let” means you already have it and just need to release it; while “make” means to generate something yourself. So I thought about these words and realized I couldn’t “make” my light shine because I wouldn’t be able to light things up so to speak. I hate to say it but me without God is evil (darkness). I promise you that no one would like me if I succumbed to those dark sides of me. So how in the world could I be a light when everything inside of me is dark? Once again when you’re dark you can’t generate light.

Now here’s the good part…it’s not just me in my body anymore. Jesus told his disciples to not worry about him leaving because he was sending the Holy Spirit (John Chapter 14) to dwell within them; to guide and teach them according to the teachings he shared with them. When we become Christians we too get the Holy Spirit to reside within us; we become a Holy Temple. This is quite a responsibility so I’ll write about it another day; needless to say I’m often very embarrassed at the way I keep my temple up.

With the above in mind, we certainly have more light we can shine because of the Holy Spirit being within us but the problem is that we do exactly what I just mentioned and that is we don’t do a good job of keeping our temple clean. We try to hide things in the closet and close doors to certain rooms in an effort to limit the impact the Holy Spirit would cause our lives if we were to let go of the world and turn ourselves over to our Father.
​
This is why we can’t generate enough light to make the difference we should be making. When we limit the Holy Spirit’s impact on our lives we’re no longer effective for ministering to those around us…basically showing love to those around us which is God’s second most important Commandment. The scary part is when you think about what God said about bearing fruit and what happens to a tree that doesn’t.

I was giving a bible study at work one day and there was a buffet table in our conference room and it had about a foot of space on the bottom and it was completely dark underneath it. I had a few people take a look to verify. Then I took a small mirror and bent down next to the table and held the mirror to where it was facing the ceiling lights and then I tilted the mirror a little bit and it completely lit up the bottom of the table. Once again I had a few people verify. Some others came up as well just to see how much light it generated.

I then went on to explain a few things to consider about my demonstration. One is that we don’t have a mirror unless we have the Holy Spirit. Without the mirror we’d probably just absorb some of the light but not be able to do anything with it.

Another thing to consider is that God doesn’t want us holding our mirror right back to him because he doesn’t need the light; he has plenty! All he wants us to do is reflect his light in those dark places…this glorifies God. This is why Matthew 5:16 says “Let your light shine.” We don’t have to create the light because we don’t really have anything to offer without the Holy Spirit being our mirror. The light we’d generate on our own would be about as effective as pointing our flashlights at the sun.

One last point, if we turn our mirror completely towards the world, we’d have the back of the mirror facing towards God so we’d have no light to share. We have to be in the world (tilting your mirror) but we can’t be of the world where the mirror would only reflect darkness to an already dark place.

So get out there and LET your light shine!

Comments are closed.

    Author: John Mann

    Picture

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly