"YOU are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid....(So)...Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Matt.5:14,16. Beautiful, empowering, and mighty as this promise and admonition is, may we ever remember (lest we be tempted to think that it's us! - Psalm 115:1) that we are only ever the privileged vessels through which Jesus' light can shine, for He alone is the Light of the world. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men." John 1:4.

Remember Gideon and the defeat of the Midianites in Judges 7:16 "And he (Gideon) divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man's hand, with empty pitchers, and lamps within the pitchers." Every soldier was given an empty 'pitcher' in which a lamp/firebrand was to be placed that it might afford the light for their battle in the night. The vessel/'pitcher' was first of all empty, the lamp was placed inside, and then (when the trumpet sounded) the vessel had to be broken in order for the light to shine. This is the light that we are to 'let' shine through us "before men", that they may see our good works and glorify God. And that light can only shine through us when we - or self - is broken. Jesus said, "I am the light of the world: He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life." John 8:12.

2 Corinthians 4:6 and 7 describe this beautiful truth very poignantly: "For God Who commanded the light to shine out of darkness has shined IN our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But we have this treasure IN earthen vessels, (that's us!) that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us." And Paul sums it up very succinctly in Col.1:27: "Christ IN you, the hope of glory." Remember in heaven that "the city has no need of the sun neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it and the Lamb of God is the LIGHT." Rev.21:23.

This was a powerful revelation and experience - with some painful implications - the Lord took me through last year, for which I praise Him...But it's daily and ongoing...If Jesus had to be broken for us, and He left us an example that we should walk in His steps, why would we think we could avoid being broken for Him, that His light may shine through us? Isn't this a privilege?...Our brokenness (human pride, selfishness, self-sufficiency, etc.) and emptiness (of self) for HIS glory (character) to be revealed? That's the essence of the first angel's message of Rev.14, and the experience of righteousness by faith.

"...Therefore have I set my face like a flint..." Is.50:7.
"Righteousness shall go before him; (and) He shall set us in the way of HIS steps." Ps.85:13.

18 February 2010