Being the Light

There is a story of a young woman one day who went to here pastor and wanted to talk about her job. She began to talk and told the pastor about how hard the job was and how rude the people she worked with were. She said she was really struggling in her Christian walk because of this job. The pastor looked at the woman and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The woman looked at the pastor curiously, but she did not respond. She went on to tell how her co-workers went out and partied on the weekends and came in and talked about all the things they had done and how draining it was to her spiritually to hear all of that kind of stuff. The pastor again calmly asked, “Where do you put lights?” Again the young lady looked at the pastor curiously but continued on about how her boss and his appalling language that he used in the work place. One last time the pastor looked at the lady and asked, “Where do you put lights?” The lady aghast at the repeated question looked at the pastor and said, “Well, I guess in dark places!” When the last word came out of her mouth she lowered her head and walked away knowing that she was suppose to be the light in the dark place of her work.

Jesus tells us we are, “the light of the world.” We live in a dark world with people that are not very nice and things that rage against everything the bible teaches. In this world we have two choices, one is unbiblical and the other is biblical. The unbiblical thing to do is to run and hide. This is what some do they insulate themselves from everything that is evil in this world and sit back and wait for Christ’s return. But God did not call us to do that! He called is to be in the world but not of it. We are supposed to let our light shine in those dark places of the world and make a difference for His kingdom. We are to be what Paul calls us in 2 Corinthians 5:20, “ambassadors for Christ.” We are supposed to go into the dark kingdom and do the work to promote God’s Kingdom.

Personally I hate Halloween. I wished in many ways it would go away, but the people outside our church are going to celebrate it, so this year we have decided to go into the dark places and see if we can make a difference for God's Kingdom. We are doing a "Light the Night" in our church parking lot. We have secured lights from our local volunteer fire department, two bounce houses, a cotton candy machine, a popcorn machine and some awesome kits from the American Tract Society. Please pray that God would help us as we reach out to our community through this event.