Shine so brightly

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. Matthew 5:14

We are called to be the light of the world. We can experience darkness in our physical lives, so light is a necessity in our day-to-day lives. 

According to the Bible, God is light, so darkness indicates the absence of God. Furthermore, darkness symbolizes life without God's truth. It is the realm of deception, ignorance, and confusion where we cannot see things clearly due to spiritual blindness. The darkness we often face sneaks into our hearts and minds, especially lies like "There's no hope", or "You're not good enough", which cause us to oppose the truth of God. 

So, how do we become the light of the world?  In addition to sharing the gospel and good news with people, we have to reflect God's light through our spiritual fruit, Godly character, our words, and deeds that reflect God's grace and love. Furthermore, being the light means living the truth in a world filled with lies and confusion. 

The words of God are the absolute truth. For example, He said in the Garden of Eden that eating from the Tree of Knowledge would cause death. The devil, also known as the father of lies, deals with "relative truth", half-truths, and lies. He twisted the truth to trick Eve into believing that they wouldn't die. It is through this method that the enemy makes us spiritually blind today. 

God's words light our path (Psalm 119:105), so living in truth means we follow God's words and don't fall for Satan's lies. The key verse of today also shows that we need to let your light "so" shine, the little world "so" is powerful, it means "in this way" like Jesus, who is bold and unapologetically, reflecting God's love and truth. 

Good works reflect God's light, so our deeds and words should reflect God's absolute truth and gospel. We should not put ourselves in the spotlight for self-seeking reasons, but our good works glorify our Heavenly Father by helping people trace the source of light. 

Be careful not to dim our light down or be confused with humility or avoid attention seeking. Rather than hiding, humility is a pure motive based on the knowledge that every good thing we do is the result of God working in us. Let our light so shine that we don’t owe anyone an explanation, let the explanation be God’s truth and love. 

Blessing prayer: Let every act of goodness and every word of truth reflect the light of God. Help us shine so brightly in the darkness that people will see that God is light. In Jesus’ name, Amen