"Turn on the Light"

“Turn on the Light”

I concluded the previous article (“Don’t Skip Church”) with an appeal to God’s people to encourage one another by joining for worship and fellowship to face the challenges of the days in which we’re living. But Paul beat me to the punch by some 2000 years when he wrote to the Christians in Rome, “…Do this, understanding the present time. The hour has come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently…(and) clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ….” (Romans 13:11-14, emphasis added). In Be Right Warren Wiersbe summarizes the Apostle’s counsel by saying we’re to wake up, clean up, dress up and grow up. To this I’d add “man up” in view of the conditions around us.

Jesus commands us to “…let your light shine before (all)….” (Matthew 5:16). In Ephesians 5:8 our Lord’s servant states the same truth in this way: “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light….” (emphasis added). By His presence in us Jesus has given us the wherewithal to bring Him, “…the light of the world….” (John 8:12), to the world into which He came “…to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10). Friends, we must turn on the lights of our lives in a culture in which “…(people love) darkness instead of light because their deeds (are) evil.” (John 3:19).

When we were in Hawaii in 1994 we visited a facility in which coral jewelry was made. Predictably the only exit at the tour’s end was through the gift shop. Karen noted that the sales people were “dressed to the nines” (an English idiom meaning ‘to the highest degree”) to make the products look good. (It worked—she bought a coral ring.) As God’s people you and I must be “dressed to the nines” by taking the nine “put offs/put ons” seriously to make Jesus look good and lifting Him up in a world desperately needing the hope He brings.

Grace and Blessings!

Jim McMillan