A Shining Faith

This blog is designed to give people an inner look at a devotional life. Taking time each day to spend time with the Lord. The hope is if you travel on this journey with Rev. Jacob Shaw, you may be more inclined to spend time with the Lord as well. I encourage the use of a devotional, a scripture reading and prayer, then finally a song, hymn or selection of poetry to tie it all together. 

Today's devotional is taken from: Vujicic, Nick. Limitless Devotions for a Ridiculously Good Life. Colorado Springs, CO: Waterbrook Press, 2013. pp 121-123.

Opening Thought: As I am writing this as the year approaches Christmas, I see many houses in my neighborhood with lights shining bright in the darkness. I am always marveled at the displays I see at Christmas partly because of the outward effort people put into them. Lights have the initial start costs, electric additional cost each season, and not to mention the manual labor of putting them up and taking them down each year. But yet, it seems that every year my neighborhood fills up with lights as I am sure yours likely does too. The lights remind us all to shine bright, particularly when the world falls to darkness. Our devotional today speaks to us about being the light in the world, and the best way to do that is to live for God, to serve God by serving others, and trust in faith that God will lead you.  

The devotional begins with: Matthew 5:14-16

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.

Second Thought:

I believe that what we see in this passage is the healthy version of pride. If we think about ourselves as lamps. God has made us capable of holding his light, he has even provided fuel for us in our gifts and motivations, all we need is to allow the spark of God to enter us and that light will begin burning, and since God is the maker of our being, the source of our fuel and the spark of light, as long as we stay close to God, we will not run short of light. We can take pride in this because we are living to our purpose under heaven. That is why you put that sort of light on a lamp post so the light can cast out further.

Where I often see people struggle, which also happens with myself, is when we start believing our light comes from ourselves. This is the wrong sort of pride. Sure God gave us individuality and free will, but those characteristics are apart of a grander picture, where we each are meant to forward God’s light in our unique way, thus who we are and all our gifts can only truly be expressed in their fullest capacity when we operate to the will and light of the Lord. When we assume, we are the source of the light in which we share, we are doomed to fail. As the light we have from out individuality is limited and finite. And as the Good Book says, one does not live on bread alone.     

Continual Work: Take some time to look at how you shine and start reflecting on how  those are gifts given to you by God. This does not mean they are not unique when they come from you, but it does mean they have the common source of all that is good in this world.

What Rev. Jacob is Working On: I am taking extra time to look at the Christmas lights this year, and appreciate the effort people have put in to light up the winter and remember that when they move to light up the world they echo the will of God.  

Scripture time: John 8:12

Again, Jesus spoke to them saying, “I am the light of the world: those who follow me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life”

There is a wonderful unity that takes place when you look and see that Christ is the light of the world and realize that we can participate with that light as Christians. That mean that Jesus is not only the Word, Messiah, Person, and King but is also an event. This may sound odd, but we literally take part in the reality of Jesus and the salvation, restoration and ministry in which he offers. Seeing Christ as an event helps us to understand the nature of Christ, Christ is the event of what happened upon the Cross, as well as the person it happened to. I won’t get into that too much, but just let that sit in my mind and yours today.

Christ is the one event in history that all are welcome too, which remains open for people to witness and participate in. And when we do, we become part of that event, eternal and forgiven by God's grace.

Closing Words: I hope you enjoyed and were lifted by this devotional time; it is truly important to take time for God each day. By doing so, you welcome God into your life, and in turn you will be able to better see the world through the eyes of God, rather than God through the world's eyes.

Artistic Close:

I love the movie Christmas Vacation, nearly killing himself in the process, Clark Griswold places thousands of lights upon his house to cultivate that Christmas spirit. (If you haven’t seen this movie, not necessarily appropriate for children).  

Who you go this far to inspire the spirit in your family, community and world?