“No one lights a lamp and then hides it or puts it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. “Your eye is like a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is healthy, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is unhealthy, your body is filled with darkness. Make sure that the light you think you have is not actually darkness. If you are filled with light, with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant, as though a floodlight were filling you with light.”
Luke 11:33-36 NLT
I don’t know if you’re familiar with the clothing brand called Unapologetic Urban Gear. Their motto is “We don’t dim our light to fit in.” In other words, we don’t compromise what we believe to be accepted by others. God has called us to be light to shine in darkness, but the enemy or circumstances will contest you to dim your light. They’ll make obeying God seem uncomfortable or seem like a strange thing to do.
The devil is subtle. He’s not just going to bust into the room and hit the light switch. He works more like a dimmer switch. He just gradually trying to get us to adjust the knob so we’ll gradually get darker. That’s why the Bible says that we have be sober and vigilant. The devil doesn’t just come at you one time. Life’s circumstances aren’t just going to come at you once. If there’s one thing you can say about the devil it’s that he’s persistent. He doesn’t give up easy. That’s why we need the power of the Spirit to give us endurance. This race we run is not a sprint, but it’s a marathon. We need to be able to last for the long haul.
“For God, who said, “Let there be light in the darkness,” has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.”
2 Corinthians 4:6 NLT
As for our light it’s not just shining our light to others that we have to worry about. We have to shine that light within ourselves. The light within us is the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. We must let Him in to shine in our hearts and then that light in us can be revealed to others. We talked about access to God. God is light and in Him there is no darkness. When we become children of God we are now children of light. Born not of flesh and blood, but born again of the Spirit of God.
If I think I have light in me, but it’s really darkness then I’m in trouble. I can’t see my way. I think we all at some point have an experience similar to Paul on the Damascus Road. We are walking along thinking we are in the light, but then the true light comes and knocks us off the things we’ve been riding on. Then God puts His true light in us and develops us into the light He has called us to be.
Sometimes even as children of God we can deviate from that light and start to develop our own light. Really it’s our own righteousness. It can cause us to be unloving and judgmental of others. We forget that God has brought from darkness into His marvelous light. Instead of shining the light to love we shine it look down on others. This is not what we learned from Christ. We ought to humble ourselves and be grateful for what God has done for us. Then share that same love with others. Realize that no matter what type of sin people are caught up in that people are hurting and need the love of Christ to heal their sin sick souls. Shine the light.
That leads us to our Throwback Song of the Week. This song is from the sibling duo The Washington Projects fka Souljahz. This is from their 2010 album “Light Up the Dark”. They originally had 3 members. The 2 brothers Joshua and Jekob and their sister Rachael Washington. Joshua left the group and the other 2 changed the name and continued to make music. The featured song is the title track for the album. Tune in to the Trackstarz show this Saturday to hear DJ Jeremaya spin this for the Throwback Song of the Day. Until next time…
Peace and blessings,
Damo
The Washington Projects – Light Up the Dark
