Illuminated Life

"He said to them, "Do you bring in a lamp to put it under a bowl or a bed? Instead, don't you put it on its stand? For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open. If anyone has ears to hear, let them hear""- Mark 4:21 (NIV).

Light is illuminating! We, as children, used to play a game at night. Everyone stepped out of the room, while the remaining person strategically moved all the furniture to different locations within the room. Then the light was turned off. You had to enter the room alone and navigate to the designated spot on the other side of the room, in a now unfamiliar environment and blindly. Once to the other side, the light was turned on and we would all laugh. It looked so easy then, but while blind it had felt difficult and awkward. That's life in a nutshell. Without the Light of God in our lives, we are the blind stumbling around, when all we really need to do is reach out to the Light and our lives will be forever illuminated. If anyone has ears to hear, let him hear what the Light has revealed.  

Strict Training

"Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever"- 1 Corinthians 9:25 (NIV).

When I was younger, much younger, I signed up to run a 5K. We just called it a three-mile race back then. My training program was to run one mile every other day. I thought if I could run one mile, I could run three...right? The day of the race, the Carolina Canter, I ran a nice one-mile stretch, but then my body began to complain and it got louder by the minute, until I finally slowed to a walk to collect myself. Needless to say, I did not win the race; but, I did learn a life lesson: You must have the self-discipline to train yourself for the race. Paul used a race as an analogy to our winning a crown and entering into our eternal reward. In verse 27 he says, "I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize." The prize awaits those who had the self-discipline to enter into strict training to compete in the games. Will you be ready when the games begin?

First Place

"But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well"- Matthew 6:33 (NIV).

We get so wrapped up in our "to-do" lists; including, family, jobs, exercise, church (don't raise your eyebrows at me), friends, home, holidays, civic duties, etc, etc, etc. Read the first eight words of today's Scripture. First things should be first, but so many times the act of seeking God gets pushed back to the back burner. Is it because He isn't sending you 10 texts each minute, emails one after the next, calling you on the phone over and over again, whining and pulling at your apron strings? Now read the last part of today's Scripture. There's the answer to your time management problems. Seek the Lord; give Him first place in your day, and He will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4).

In Line

"Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done"- Acts 19:18 (NIV).

People were ready to give up all their evil ways when they saw God working powerfully through Paul in Ephesus. God is all powerful; He has told us: "I form the light and create darkness, I bring prosperity and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things" (Isaiah 45:7). Nothing like a jolt of real fear to bring about confession and repentance. Living a life as a follower of Christ removes the fear of God's judgment. So, why don't more people choose a relationship with Christ and fall in line behind Him? We live in a culture of self-gratification. We want the biggest, the best, and the most and we want it right now. The devil knows this and he uses our self-indulgent desires to lure us into a stupefied sense of "all's right in my world," while we become anesthetized to the evil permeating our life. That is, until God demonstrates His presence and we fall on our faces in fear, asking for forgiveness. "The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil's work" (1 John 3:8). The answer is Jesus; it's always been Jesus. Get in line behind Him.   

Be Still and Know

"The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still"- Exodus 14:14 (NIV).

The ESV translation says you need only to be silent. Israel, at the time of Jesus' birth, was under Roman rule and occupation. Try to visualize foreigners in our country collecting heavy and, often, unfair taxes, armed soldiers stationed throughout our cities and countryside, with the strength to take what they want and leave us with only our life; some of us would retaliate, so the interlopers would cruelly make examples out of those who didn't comply. That's the Israel Jesus was born into. The night Jesus was born, there was a stillness, a silence. A portion of the lyrics to the 1818 lyrics of Silent Night are "Silent night, Holy night, all is calm, all is bright...sleep in heavenly peace." In the middle of all the offenses of the Roman occupation, Bethlehem was being still. Bethlehem was silent. And God was ready to deliver them out of the darkness into new life. That silent night ended with angels heralding the good news: "Peace on earth, and mercy mild..."Christ is born in Bethlehem"" (Hark the Herald Angels Sing). Jesus was overcoming the world. The Lord will fight for you. "Be still and know" (Psalm 46:10a)

People or God?

"Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ"- Galatians 1:10 (NIV).

Imagine how good it must have felt for Edmund Hillary to be the first person to reach the summit of Mount Everest. There seems to be a strong desire in each of us to be validated; either by parents, friends, teachers, bosses, spouses, etc. Every hilltop moment of validation is temporary though; you will not be satisfied with man's approval for very long. You'll just move on to some other goal in which to be validated. Yes, even Edmund Hillary continued climbing other mountains, I'm sure trying to recapture that feeling and gain recognition. Paul, in today's Scripture is saying that, to be a servant of Christ, our need for validation should only come from Christ Jesus. That strong desire for validation was placed in each of us for Him and, in truth, only He can satisfy that desire. "Take delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). Who do you seek validation from: people or God? The real question is: Whose servant are you?

Great Love

"Whoever has My commands and keeps them is the one who loves Me. The one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I too will love them and show Myself to them"- John 14:21 (NIV).

Jesus instructed His followers that if they loved Him, they would keep His commands (v.15). How many parents have echoed those same feelings and been let down by one of their children? Have you heard a parent say, when dispensing punishment, "This hurts me more than it hurts you." What hurts is that all parents internalize their child's disobedience as lack of love for them. Now, as a parent, I can understand how God felt seeing His children in disobedience. Punishment was required. The punishment truly hurt God the Father more than it hurt us; Jesus suffered our penalty and sponged the offenses from our record. The stark difference, in this case, is that the guilty person didn't suffer the consequence; instead, God provided His innocent Son to take our penalty. We, as God's adopted children, in each act of disobedience, tell our Heavenly Father we don't love Him, but each time we are obedient we tell God we truly love Him. "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" (1 John 3:1a). 

Look Forward

"Do not say, "Why were the old days better than these?" For it is not wise to ask such questions"- Ecclesiastes 7:10 (NIV).

We tend to look back and sigh at days gone by: the good old days. According to Scripture, we aren't supposed to look back. Paul said, "Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead" (Philippians 3:13). Our Lord and Savior also taught, "No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God" (Luke 9:62). Every athlete, who runs a race, knows the perils of looking back during the race; you can lose your balance, fall and be disqualified. There are so many memories in our past, but each had a hand in creating who we are today: more mature disciples of Christ. With Scripture telling us not to look back, why would we want to be like Lot's wife? She was told not to look back and we know the outcome of her disobedience; she was certainly disqualified from her race. We must look forward in our race, keep our balance, and yearn for the new adventures God has designed for each of us (Jeremiah 29:11). 

Noticable

"The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth"- John 1:14 (NIV).

It's been 27 centuries since the prophet Micah prophesied that the Messiah would be born in a little village just south of Jerusalem (Micah 5:2). Jews had been waiting on the Messiah to come for centuries. The Jewish Talmud reads, "The King Messiah...from where does He come forth? From the royal city of Bethlehem in Judah" (Berakoth 5a). Bethlehem wasn't a town to be noticed, but that sleepy little town bore witness to the Messiah's glory, the glory of the one and only Son of God coming into this world; His world; His creation. How many citizens of Bethlehem would have walked by this scene and thought the tiny baby was the King of kings and Lord of lords? They probably would have thought He was due the least of notice. Let us bear this in mind when we pass by those who appear to be poor, homeless, and helpless in our small realm of existence. Remember, Jesus said that whatever you did for the least of others, you did for Him (Matthew 25:40). Take notice of those around you who are in need; you will be filling their greatest need by showing God's love and they will have seen His glory.