Shining or Dimming

‘’Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

Let your light so SHINE BEFORE MEN, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’’

                                                                                Matthew 5:14, 16 (KJV, Emphasis mine)

 

The bible passage above I’m sure it’s one that we have all read and maybe memorised at one time at Sunday School as little children. What’s more we might have even learnt and sang that popular song of letting our little lights shine. But then I ask myself and every believer out there today,

‘’Are we really letting that little light of ours shine?’’

Have we not in the name of political correctness attempted to hide our lights under a bushel? Some of us might have not hidden it entirely but we have gradually started reducing the brightness of our light to adjust to the darkness. In short, rather than shining, our lights are dimming. There are some stances believers these days find difficult to take so as not to be seen as primitive, old school or not even enlightened. I even hear there are many gospels being propagated now. According to today’s Open Heavens devotional by Pastor Enoch Adeboye where he highlighted the dangers of heretic teachings that is now the order of the day in this present age, that there are different gospels now being propagated. They are; The Gospel of Relativism, Gospel of Modernism and Post-Modernism.

As a believer, are you truly shining? You know how it is when NEPA of old (my Nigerian readers will understand me better)supplies light with very low voltage to our homes and then the light starts to fluctuate. The light is so dimmed that even a candle appears to be brighter. What then happens? In frustration, one is left to either turn off all electrical appliances to prevent damage, wait it out till light of higher voltage is restored or if it were at night, we switch to generator. This analogy goes to show the utter uselessness of a light that is not shining brightly. Does that describe us as present day believers? How brightly is your light shining? Is it low current like we call this light that NEPA brings? Is it any wonder that the world is in darkness? We have through our daily acts of compromise and attitude of ‘it doesn’t matter’ or ‘God is not so wicked’ allowed the world to snuff out our light. I like the apt way this Instagram handle I follow, @storm_326 puts it,

 

When light shines brightly enough, soon darkness naturally finds its way out. Are you shining or dimming? You dim your light when you hang out in the club on Saturday nights and yet think it’s nothing because you do not miss your Sunday services. You dim your light when on your social media accounts people find it difficult to really say you are a Christian because of your very un-Christianly conduct.

‘’It’s my personal page’’, they say.

‘’ What I do or believe in is personal’’

Say what now?

You dim your light when as a believer you see nothing wrong in cussing or using vulgar language. Shoot me!

‘’...but be thou an example of the believers, IN WORD, IN CONVERSATION, IN CHARITY, IN SPIRIT, IN FAITH, IN PURITY.’’

                                                                1Timothy 4:12 (KJV, Emphasis mine)

 

I meet people of other faiths who never attempt to hide their belief. In fact you can easily tell from their conduct and speech without being told where they belong but believers, we like to ‘dress to suit the occasion’. I tweeted sometime last week that the world is finding it difficult to come to the church because the church keeps trying to look like the world. The world feels they miss nothing for coming to the church while the church acts like they missed something(s) for leaving the world.

 

This message is for the discerning. Maranatha!