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'Shine like stars in the universe’. Do we do this?
We all know of little Sunday
school songs and children’s songs that talk about shining; ‘This Little Light
of Mine’, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’. We can think of the concept of shining to be
childish, unnecessary, cute, or not for the mature. These views are not
accurate simply because the whole concept of shining came from God Himself (through
Paul), with no reference to age, maturity, life experience, gender, marital
status etc. He has described all those belonging to Christ to be shining like
stars in the universe.
The verb shine means to be ‘of the sun or another source of light’; ‘to glow
or be bright with reflected light’; ‘be bright with emotion’; to ‘direct (a
torch or other light, the dictionary states) somewhere in order to see something
in the dark.’
A bit of a recap on English for a
moment, a verb simply is a word used to describe an action or the state of
something.
So what Paul is telling us here is
that we are to be in the action of shining, we are to be seen or found in the
state of shining. In the action of glowing brightly with the reflected light of
Jesus; being bright with His emotions; we are to be the one’s shining bright enough
with His light to those who need to see through the darkness; we are also to
shine our light to find them in the darkness.
But how? How are we to keep shining like we are meant
to? Paul tells us one way to do this. Back up in verse 15 he tells us to do
everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and
pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in
which you shine like stars in the universe.
Everything without complaining or
arguing … that is pretty hard for us. I am reading this book at the moment that
is all about thanksgiving. About recognising the things that are in our life
that come to us right from the hand of God and then going one step further and
verbally thanking Him for it. Not just recognising the good things, but voicing
our thanks for these things. The author goes one step further again and writes
down all these good things as a written record of the goodness of God in her
life. Thanksgiving and thankfulness are the opposite of complaining and
arguing. Thanksgiving and shining go hand in hand. Thanksgiving makes way for
the shining.
If we are to be shining like stars
in the universe so that others may be made aware of His grace and mercy and
salvation; yet all we do is complain, whinge, argue and sometimes flat out
refuse to give God our thanks for all the many amazing exceedingly above all
that we ever hoped or asked for or imagined blessings; the thankfulness that He
deserves, then aren’t we in fact dimming our lights? Becoming less effective in
our witness? Becoming a little flicker instead of a full on blaze of His
reflected light.
Jesus himself in Luke 22:19 ‘Took
the bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them’. Jesus saw the
importance of giving thanks to His Father even while awaiting his crucifixion,
knowing that His suffering would manifest the glory of God. Do we follow the example of Christ and offer
thankfulness in all things, good and bad, just as Christ offered thanks to His
Father before the excruciating torture that left Him unrecognisable to man took
place?
This is what makes our shining so
important, so vital, and so necessary.
Isaiah 53: 5 says , ‘But he was pierced
for our transgressions; he was
crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us
peace, and with his wounds we are healed’.
Paul follows up in verse 16 that we
‘shine like stars in the universe, as we hold out the Word of life – in order
that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labour for
nothing’.
We are to shine and hold out the
Word of life. When we are actively reflecting the light of Jesus in our lives
by offering audible thankfulness, it is near impossible to grumble and complain
and argue and we are more effective in holding out the Word of life who is
Jesus – because our words are life.
Jesus will be made known on the face of this earth and in our communities and in
our homes and our workplaces and our schools when we choose to offer our
thankfulness to Him in all that He has and will continue to do for us. Good and
bad. We will shine brightly, His salvation will be made known to those who have
been drawn out of the darkness by our shining words of thankfulness to Him.
David knew how to give thanks,
despite the unthinkable hardships he faced.
I will give to
the LORD the thanks due to his
righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.
Psalm 7:17
Proclaiming
thanksgiving aloud, and telling all your wondrous deeds.
Psalm 27:6
O LORD my God, I will give thanks
to you forever!
Psalm 30:12
But we your people, the sheep of your
pasture, will give thanks to you forever; from generation to generation
we will recount your praise.
If Jesus sees giving thanks when
facing crucifixion as necessary, then how much more thanks should we gladly give
God? We who will never have to face this crucifixion because He has done it all
for us. He walked that long steep hill, agonising under the weight of that massive,
splintering cross that gouged itself into the raw, open wounds of his flesh. He
was the One who felt the sting and the burn on His skin as they tore out the
beard that adorned His face. He was the One who was on humiliating, naked
display torn and dripping red with the cleansing blood of the spotless lamb. He
was the one who gave us eternal life through the death of Himself.
May we never stop giving him
thanks; may we never stop being those shining stars in this dark, depraved
universe, for His glory.
So privileged to read this... thank you for sharing XXXXX
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