We once sang a Sunday School song, “This little light of mine, I’m gonna to let it shine…” If kids were to sing that nowadays, they’d whip out their cell phones, turn on a flashlight app, and start waving them!
The song actually comes from the Sermon on the Mount: “You are the light of the world. … Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16
It is a call for us to shine. Many Christians assume that the way you let your light shine and glorify your Father in heaven is primarily through good works. While good works are certainly desirable, that’s not what makes your light shine.
We read in John (8:12 and 12:36) that Jesus called Himself ”the light of the world” and He said, “While you have the Light, believe in the Light, so that you may become sons of Light.” The candle inside us gets lit by believing Jesus. But just because it is lit doesn’t mean it’s visible to others or of any use to them.
When the current pandemic reached serious proportions, I remember thinking, “I hope Christians respond to this differently than the rest of the world. It is time for us to shine, to be lights!” We can certainly shine by showing people the love of Jesus; asking them how they are doing, listening and caring. We may find opportunities to help those less fortunate by giving. Or God might show us other ways to bear another’s burden in this challenging time (Galatians 6:2). But none of these are the source of the light that makes us shine.
Believing Jesus is what lights us up, from the inside out. Believing anything that contradicts Jesus obscures that light. This is why we have to guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23).
My wife and I came across another believer this past week who told us, at length, how she’d spent many hours tracking death rates from the virus, using data modeling to try to predict when the virus may have run its course. She nervously wondered aloud whether her conclusions were correct. Perhaps her analysis gave her some feeling of control, but it significantly dimmed her light.
If clouds of fear, worry, analysis, and self-protection come along, we can choose to sit under their shadow and have our light compromised, or we can choose to believe Jesus and dismiss those temptations, just like the sun breaks through clouds in the natural.
God wants us to walk in faith. When we enter into fear, we are pressing the dimmer switch, turning down our brightness. He wants us instead to believe in His ability to protect us (See Psalm 91.) When we choose to trust in His love, in His ability to protect and provide, we turn up our light’s intensity.
As surely as you can control the brightness on your cell phone’s flashlight app, you can control how much you, as the light of the world, shine.
