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Shining Like Stars

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“You are the light of the world. A city 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.”  Matthew 5:14-15

Jesus called you and me the light of the world. It only makes sense, really, since He is the “the true light that gives light to every man” (John 1:9) and now He dwells within us. As His body, saved and redeemed by His blood, He asks us to shine His light. And according to Matthew 5, that light should never remain hidden. Instead, it should light up the sky like a city on a hill.

Do you shine, dear one? Are you giving Jesus what He asked for?

I can’t help thinking of the song I used to sing as a little girl in Sunday school. We’d proudly hold up our hands with fingers pointing toward the heavens and proclaim, “This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.”

But it didn’t shine. I never let it out.

We often make the mistake of trying to act like Jesus. We think we shine His light by imitating what He would do. Only we don’t have the strength to act like Him all the time, so that inner “self” we try to hide through our good behavior reveals itself more often than we’d like it to. And the watching world looks at our version of Christianity and calls it hypocrisy.

Can we really blame them?

You and I aren’t supposed to act like light, dear one. Jesus intends for us to become light.

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

2 Corinthians 5:21

… God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 1 John 1:5

Jesus carried the burden of our sin to the cross so that we could become His righteousness. He gave it to us the moment we put our faith in Him and received His Spirit to dwell within us. Now we need to let Him out. We need to yield to the power of His Spirit within us and let Him take over.

You see, beloved, Jesus shines through a transformed heart.

Have you offered Him your heart to mold and change, dear one? Have you told Him you’re willing to let go of your bitterness? Have you invited Him to circumcise your heart to love with His selfless love?

It’s time we stopped pretending and let Jesus set us ablaze with His light!

Times are changing. Evil seems to show itself in increasing measure. Scripture foretells of astonishing things to come—some of them terrible, some wondrous—but all of them remain certain.

Yet in Christ, we have glorious hope!

But at that time your people—everyone whose name is found written in the book—will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever. Daniel 12:1-3

When will these things be fulfilled? God made this astonishing announcement to the prophet Daniel centuries ago.

… When the power of the holy people has been finally broken, all these things will be completed.” Daniel 12:7

When the power of the holy people has finally been broken? What on earth does that mean?

Consider for a moment the power struggle that rages within you. Each day you must choose whether to bow to your own self-will, or to bow to the leadership of the Spirit. More often than not, your own desires win the battle, quenching the Spirit’s power.

Yet in the last days, the power of the Spirit will rise victorious. Christ’s own will finally learn to overcome and claim the victory Jesus purchased for them through the cross. As in the days following the church’s conception, believers will choose to abandon self-will, leaving its power broken. Christ’s church will rise, yielding to His Spirit in glorious surrender, uniting in the love and unity glimpsed at the birth of the church and restored in time for the return of the King.

Beloved, you and I can hasten His return.

You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. 2 Peter 3:11-12

As we choose to surrender to the work of the Spirit in our lives, allowing Christ to sanctify our hearts and renew our minds with His purpose, we move us toward the fulfillment of God’s great plan of redemption.

Like the Disciples who first answered Jesus’ call and paved the way for us, will you choose to live radically for Jesus, abandoning all else to the rise of His glory? I pray that you will, beloved,

. . . so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe. Philippians 2:15

Then our eyes will finally gaze upon our Lord and King without a veil. Glory rises, dear one. Will you allow Christ to release it through you?

 

The God Who Fills

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And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.  Ephesians 1:22-23

You probably know that Scripture defines the church as the body of Christ. But did you realize that it defines the body as “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way?” Does He fill you?

Last week we witnessed God perform the miraculous on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-8). God’s glory filled His human temple! And as Jesus filled His disciples with His Spirit, He revealed something extraordinary. He demonstrated the potential of His church.

Dear one, many of us professing to be followers of Jesus Christ live powerless lives marked by defeat rather than living testimonies that display the glory of God. Let me remind you what God spoke through the prophet Malachi,

“I the Lord do not change.”  Malachi 3:6

Hebrews 13:8 confirms, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.” Jesus has not changed since the day He gave birth to His church. His church has changed.

Many of us seem to have overlooked an important characteristic of Christ revealed in Scripture: Jesus fills. As you consider the following verses, ask God to give you fresh perspective about why He allowed His Son to dwell within your heart.

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.  Ephesians 3:16-19

For what purpose did Paul pray for strength and power in our inner being? What desired result will flow from grasping the depth of Christ’s love and establishing our roots there? Verse 19 reveals the divine purpose: that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Dear one, God desires to fill you with the complete measure of Himself. Not just a portion, the full measure. The God who fills both heaven and earth (Jeremiah 23:24) plans to fill you with the entire magnitude of who He is through His Son.

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.  Colossians 1:19-20

God poured His fullness into Jesus. Now Jesus means to pour that same fullness into us.

For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.  Colossians 2:9-10

The crowds at Pentecost witnessed Jesus doing exactly what He was made to do, fill every thing in every way (Ephesians 1:23). As the early believers waited in Jerusalem in obedient submission to Jesus’ instructions, Jesus filled His early followers with His Spirit. The Head took authority over His believing body, resulting in a grand display of glory and power.

Remember, Jesus had already breathed His Spirit into these devoted followers (John 20:22). Their faith in Him had already sealed them as His own for salvation (Ephesians 1:13). But what happened at Pentecost empowered them for service in the Kingdom. They no longer simply possessed God’s Spirit; they were filled by Him (Acts 2:4). And that filling empowered them to reveal Christ to a lost and needy world. People in the crowd from every nation remarked, “we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” (Acts 2:11)

Can you imagine how they must have felt that day? The disciples were no strangers to miraculous power. Jesus had empowered them to heal the sick and cast out demons while He still walked among them (Luke 9:1). But what they experienced at Pentecost was altogether different. As Jesus filled them, they became one with their Lord. They weren’t exercising authority He had given them. This time, He filled them up and took them over!

Do you want to know how the early church differed from much of the church we see today? Jesus filled them. They surrendered to Him with sold-out abandon, relinquishing their own desires to live out the will of God. The result was the very presence of Christ making Himself known through them in unbelievable ways.

Notice the common denominator in each of the following Scriptures.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.  Acts 4:31

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them . . .  Acts 4:8 

Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom.  Acts 6:3 

And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.  Acts 13:52

And what distinguished John the Baptist, the man who held the great privilege of preparing the way for the Lord?  He was “filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth.”  Luke 1:15

Do you want to live out your eternal purpose on this earth? Do you want to leave a legacy that will survive the testing of fire at the end of days? You will never be an effective witness for very long by trying to act like Jesus. Eventually, hypocrisy will reveal itself and send the very people you try to reach running in the other direction.

The hurting world doesn’t need people who occasionally behave like Jesus. It needs Jesus.

Beloved, we need to stop pretending to be like Jesus and let the Son of God within us be who He is. We need to surrender control and humbly invite Him to take His throne. Jesus means to reveal Himself as Lord, not just in heaven, but over the hearts, minds and lives of all who believe.

Let’s surrender everything and allow the King of Glory to fill His house. The world will witness the glory of God transforming hearts and lives, and . . .

. . .the body of Christ [will] be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Ephesians 4:12-13