It is easy to take our eyes off the Lord and to become concerned about what others think. It is easy to want to hide our faith within the walls of our homes and church. If this is what the Lord Jesus Christ wanted us to do, then once we came to accept Christ as our Saviour, we’d disappear from this world in a hurry. Again, during his earthly ministry, the Lord Jesus Christ taught No man, when he hath lighted a candle, putteth it in a secret place, neither under a bushel, but on a candlestick, that they which come in may see the light (Luke 11:33). With this verse in mind, I think about the times in Louisiana where a hurricane would knock out electricity for a few days and I had to use candlelight or lantern light to finish chores or coursework. I never lit a candle or lantern to use later, I always lit it to use it at that particular moment it was needed.
Truth is, the Lord Jesus Christ needs us now. Since the days he walked the Earth with his disciples, he lamented to them, Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest (John 4:35). Oh, that the workers would not be afraid of who would catch them working in the fields. Oh, that more Christians would live out their faith in public that others may see the reflection of the one we serve! Jesus calls us to stand out, to be different than those around us; that is what he is saying when he taught those who were following him, Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men (Matthew 5:13).
We are to make a difference in the lives of others; we are to be a “living epistle” to a lost and dying world. We are to live a life that not only draws places the focus onto Christ, but that will cause others to begin Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2a). We are to be more concerned with doing what God would have us do rather than what man, in his lost condition, does not want us to do. As written by Jude, we should have the strongest of desires to be the ones described: And to some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh (Jude 22-23).
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