I hope by the time you are reading this that you have achieved the yearly task of putting up all your Christmas decorations. For many, this is usually done sometime after the Thanksgiving holiday. Putting up all the Christmas decorations involves not just what is put up on the inside of your house but also the outside. For most of us the decorations for the outside usually involves the Christmas lights that you hang on the fascia or even some other creative and strategic location on or around your house.
In a 2015 article of PHYS.ORG stated that, “American household Christmas lights, a favorite holiday tradition, use up more electricity than some poorer countries—such as El Salvador or Ethiopia—do in a year.”
For most of us seeing those multicolored lights lighting up the neighborhood is a traditional and familiar reminder that signals the approaching Christmas holiday.
One standard about Christmas lights that most of us hold to is that it is really important all the lights on the strand are lit. Settling for just some lights that light in a strand will not do. But what about our lives, are we settling to live a partially lit life as Christians? Have we become accustomed to a partially lit life as normal?
Did you ever realize what the Bible says about how your life as a Christian should not only light up the Christmas holiday but also continue to stay lit throughout the year? This is what Jesus tells us about our lives being the light that others should experience wherever we are. “You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Matthew 5:14-16.
The light that Jesus is referring to is Christ in our lives and influence He has in our lives, which is our testimony of who He is in us. This is the light that others should see in us and experience when we are in their presence.
Jesus is the light in us because we have invited Him into our lives and because of our relationship and our love for Him; we have submitted and trusted our lives to Him. Jesus tells us in Matthew 22:37-40, “…’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. Is our love for Jesus only on Sunday when we are at Church? In John 14:15 Jesus also told us, “If you love me, you will obey what I command.” Do others see our lives being submitted to what God’s Word says of how our lives should exemplify who Jesus is in us? Not because we have to but because we love Him.
One of the many characteristics of light is that it exposes what is in the dark. The apostle John in his gospel tells us a lot about the Light, Jesus in our lives as Christians. “But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.” John 3:21. For many different reasons some Christians are afraid, ashamed or are private about whom Jesus Christ is in their lives. It is interesting that those who do not have a relationship with Christ (unbelievers) can notice right away when someone who considers himself or herself a Christian is not living their lives as a Christian should. Jesus said in John 3:20, “Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed.”
The apostle John writing to believers makes the point very clear about the life of a Christian and how we live our life or our walk. 1 John 1:5-7, 5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
It is important to notice is that John is not saying this specifically to other Christians with a “holier-than thou” attitude, or self-righteously considering himself spiritually superior to others. If you noticed six times, he includes himself in the context of what he is saying.
Being the light and living in the light also has to do with our relationships with other Christians, and also unbelievers. Jesus makes this point concerning unbelievers in Matthew 5:43-48, 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. The way we treat others is another way we can let our “light shine before men”.
The apostle John in 1 John 2:9-11 makes it very clear of how we are to treat other Christians, “his brother” and how it relates to us being in the light. 9 Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother is still in the darkness. 10 Whoever loves his brother lives in the light, and there is nothing in him to make him stumble. 11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him.
As we count off the days until Christmas and also throughout the year let us not settle for a partially lit life, but “Stay alert and be clearheaded”, and “be on your guard” as the apostle Paul reminds us, not forgetting where we belong and where we should be living, “in the light”.
Pastor John
1 Thessalonians 5:5-8
5 For you are all children of the light and of the day; we don’t belong to darkness and night. 6 So be on your guard, not asleep like the others. Stay alert and be clearheaded. 7 Night is the time when people sleep and drinkers get drunk. 8 But let us who live in the light be clearheaded, protected by the armor of faith and love, and wearing as our helmet the confidence of our salvation. New Living Translation
