In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:16
One more thing about this verse. Jesus doesn’t NEED us to shine our lights. He chooses us. He doesn’t compel us to do x, y, or z for Him, but He asks us to anyway. Shining our lights of faith for Christ in a world that desperately needs Him isn’t something He requires, or is a primal need of His, and it doesn’t mean we are the only way Jesus can accomplish His work here on the stubborn Third Rock.
But if we won’t do it, who will?
I think of Corrie ten Boom. She and her sister were arrested by the Nazis for hiding Jews in their home. If you want to know the cost of faith, read “The Hiding Place.” The Ten Boom sisters were shipped to Ravensbruck concentration camp, and Corrie’s sister died there. Living under constant threat of death, in disease and squalor, covered in lice and sores and filth, they prayed. They prayed in secret and in defiance of the brutal monsters who were systematically exterminating people like them all over Europe.
Corrie ten Boom wasn’t Jewish. She was a Christian who could not stand by idly while her fellow men and women were being murdered for their ethnic faith. She and her family took the risks of being caught just to save over 800 people during the Holocaust. At Ravensbruck, even in the middle of work, torture, and death, Corrie and her sister held clandestine worship services where dozens of people were converted to the faith. Corrie ten Boom was unexpectedly released following a clerical error; a week later, all the women in her section were murdered. Miracle? Or just Jesus at work through someone He asked.
You and I live in a time when the world is rapidly changing, seems to be falling into irreversible chaos. This isn’t the first time in history this has happened. Think of the days before the Flood Or Europe during the Black Plague, July 1914, the Holocaust (mentioned above), or 1968. There are hundreds of such events, and one is happening now. During our time, the number of believers in Jesus seems to be waning. If we don’t stand up and say, “I believe in Jesus,” who will? No, Jesus doesn’t NEED us to do it. But He does ask.
After other great crises in history, great revivals of the faith took place. Might we be on the cusp of another such event? That remains to be seen. With God, all things are possible. One thing is sure. Miracle, revival, or not, now is our time to stand up and be counted for Christ. To do Jesus’ work here of loving our fellow man, no matter what it takes. Corrie ten Boom did that. Will we?
For more reading: Matthew 5:17
Father, let me do Your bidding here today.
Practical Proverbs 