Don’t hide your light! Let it shine for all; let your good deeds glow for all to see, so that they will praise your heavenly Father.
Matthew 5:15, 16 (The Living Bible)
I cannot think of the performer who sings the lyric, “Let me be myself so I can shine”, but I can question the lyric. How can you shine all by yourself? Unless you have a power source, you are not going to shine. For us Christians, our power source is Jesus Christ. He is the one that we are to be like. So, allow me to change the lyric slightly to be, “Let me be like Christ so I can shine.”
Shining our light in this dark world can be a challenge. But, with the help of the Holy Spirit inside us, we can shine brightly for all to see. I believe that there are three factors involved in letting our light shine for Jesus Christ.
Matthew 5:15, 16 (The Living Bible)
I cannot think of the performer who sings the lyric, “Let me be myself so I can shine”, but I can question the lyric. How can you shine all by yourself? Unless you have a power source, you are not going to shine. For us Christians, our power source is Jesus Christ. He is the one that we are to be like. So, allow me to change the lyric slightly to be, “Let me be like Christ so I can shine.”
Shining our light in this dark world can be a challenge. But, with the help of the Holy Spirit inside us, we can shine brightly for all to see. I believe that there are three factors involved in letting our light shine for Jesus Christ.
- We must be able to shine consistently. Letting people see a pattern of good works in us is one way of showing them that we follow Jesus. Jesus is said to have gone about doing good. That means He was always doing something good for someone. As Christians, we must follow that same example and always do good.
- We must be able to shine constantly. When a light bulb shines its light, it does so without flickering (unless the electricity is about to go out). Shining our light constantly is a positive witness of who we are in Christ.
- We must be able to shine openly. In Matthew 5:14, Jesus reminds us that when a person lights a candle, he puts it on a candlestick, not under a bushel. Sometimes, fear of rejection or ridicule may make us reconsider shining our light openly, but shining our light openly is the only way people can identify who we are in Christ.