Hey Buddy, Lighten Up!

I was reading Ephesians 5 this morning where Paul calls us to be children who imitate our Father by walking in love.

What a great invitation! Walk in love just as your Father in heaven walks in love! So what does "walking in love" look like? How do I imitate God?

Paul defines "walking in love" as this; having nothing to do with things like "filthiness, foolish talk, nor coarse jesting" (v4) and warns us to "let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience" (v6), and concludes his exposition of "walking in love" by saying "therefore, do not be partakers with them." (v7)

Not exactly what one might expect when getting a dissertation on how to walk in love!

But I like where Paul goes with it, he begins to explain not only how love "walks", but Love's very nature! The nature of love is that love is light, and therefore the children of love are also children of light, and light has nothing to do with darkness!

In fact, the true test of whether or not we are children of light/love is whether or not we expose the unfruitful works of darkness (v11-13). Paul describes it like this:

"all things that are exposed are made manifest by the light, for whatever makes manifest IS light." (v13)

To "manifest" simply means to make hidden things known. So verse 13 could also be written like this: "for whatever makes hidden things known is by definition light". (It is where we get the the expression '...bringing things to light'.)

Paul is stating that those who are children of God, a God who is by nature Love and Light, will imitate their Father and as an act of love will bring things into the light. They will be easily identified in this world because they will be the ones bringing the unfruitful deeds of darkness into the open - not merely avoiding them but being active in exposing them.

Unfortunately I think that as a modern church we have grown weary in being light in a dark world and have chosen the path of less resistance by turning a blind eye to the sin both within ourselves and around us.

We have chosen not to "judge" because we do not want to be "judged" in our own sin. Oh what a great benefit we have forfeited by not speaking out on sin! For in not calling others to righteousness we have hidden our own hearts from the light of God's love - a light designed  to purify not only the hearer, but both the hearer and messenger within the same light.

When we shine the light of God's love on others it will invariably shine upon us; and unless we see that as a good thing we will forever be hindered from becoming the bright and shining lamps that God intended us to be. Being light bearers requires that we become adept at effectively dealing with our own depravity at the foot of the Cross. We must become those who willingly run to the blood of Jesus at the first sign of our own sinfulness. It we can not run to the cross in confidence we will never have the confidence to call others to repentance, and we will forever struggle with the fear of doing evangelism.

Yest it is the Holy Spirits mandate to convict people of sin and call them to righteousness through Christ, but have we ever considered that the Holy Spirit dwells within us? We are His dwelling place! We are now the manifest (the visible) presence of Jesus on the earth! We have been given the Holy Spirit for the express purpose of producing His fruit within the world - to make Him manifest - to make the hidden Spirit visible!

And yet many of us tremble with the fear of having our own sin exposed, even though Christ has declared that His beloved will no longer be condemned for any of her sins. Romans declares it "Therefore, there is no longer any condemnation for those who are Christ Jesus!"

We are light! We are the light of the world!!

So I got this picture while I was writing in my journal this morning;

Imagine you were walking through the forest in the dead of night with a flashlight in your hand. Suddenly in the midst of the trees your small beam of light comes to rest upon the eyes of a ravenous wolf! Looking around you soon realize that you can not find your way out of the woods and begin to fear that there might be more wolves hiding in the trees?

What do you do?

a) Turn off your flashlight and pretend the wolves are not there?
b) Grab a bigger flashlight from your bag?
c) Pray that the sun would rise so that you could find a way out?

I don't know about you but I'm going with 'C'!

The idea of turning off our lights because we fear what is hidden in the dark seems foolish to me. It also demonstrates that we lack understanding of our true spiritual condition. We have been delivered from the power of sin and darkness! We have been given authority over sin, demons and everything that would set itself up against the knowledge of Christ. We are more than conquerors!!

We do not need to fear standing up and shining our light into the darkness, and we do not need to live in fear of having that same light shining upon our own hearts. YES we will expose sin within ourselves whenever we shine a light on others, but is that not God's desire?! To purify us from all unrighteousness while we call the world into that same righteousness! God is intent on removing everything that hinders love within us, and the more we shine our lights upon the deeds of darkness the more that light will shine upon us and purify us from all unrighteousness.

We are light! We are the light of the world!! It's time for the children of light to stand up and let their lights shine or God is going to remove our lampstands from among the churches. (Rev 2)

Well that got a lot more intense then I was expecting when I started this post, but I think that's ok! In closing I will leave you with these whimsical words of encouragement..."hey buddy, lighten up!!"

Jon :\