How Will You Shine
“Don’t shine so others can see you. Shine so that through you, others can see Him.” ― C.S. Lewis
During WWII C.S. Lewis gave many short talks on BBC radio that were very popular with a war weary country. On the following websites you will find the only two talks from the radio broadcasts that survived. His talks eventually were put in his book “Mere Christianity”. He is a master at the personal message of who we are in Christ. I hope you can listen to them.
In this dark world in which we live, we find many people who are so caught up in themselves and what they are doing and how their lives are going that at times it seems hard to even talk to them. The world is becoming a place where communicating with others is a lost skill. Many do not even appear to know how to do it. Scripture says that we are to be a light during this time of the end and to shine in a world gone dark. Are we doing this or are we being caught up too in the anger and frustration of a world in turmoil? I note that Bob Vermaat has written a very good article in this month’s magazine on God’s Peace and many of his thoughts are what I too have been thinking. We cannot be at peace with ourselves or with God if we cannot find that deep faith in God that passes understanding. We must build our faith and trust in Him. Sometimes our faith is compromised because we cannot forgive ourselves for our own sins, but we must always remember that God loves us and forgives us when we “repent and turn from our wicked ways”. If we trust Him, we must let Him help us to change our hearts as well as our minds and let Him comfort us. Jesus said to His disciples that He had to go but He would send them the Comforter. “These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” (John 14:25-27). The world gives us very little peace but He can!
We are to remember that the key to our Christian walk is not in us but in Him and we must build our relationship with Him and walk with Him daily. As His Servant people we should be shining brightly. Every day He should be our priority. The world today is blind to Jesus and doesn’t know anything about Him. We are His representatives here on Earth and our lives should show them who He is through how we live our lives. Our goal should be to shine brightly in a world gone terribly dark. I found this quote from C.S. Lewis in an article about him on the following website:
https://letterstocreationists.wordpress.com/2012/01/07/the-worlds-last-night-c-s-lewis-on-the-second-coming/
“I do not find that pictures of physical catastrophe—that sign in the clouds, those heavens rolled up like a scroll—help one so much as the naked idea of judgment. We cannot always be excited. We can, perhaps, train ourselves to ask more and more often how the thing which we are saying or doing (or failing to do) at each moment will look when the irresistible light streams in upon it; that light which is so different from the light of this world—and yet, even now, we know just enough of it to take it into account. Women sometimes have the problem of trying to judge by artificial light how a dress will look by daylight. That is very like the problem of all of us: to dress our souls not for the electric lights of the present world but for the daylight of the next. The good dress is the one that will face that light. For that light will last longer.”
Here are encouraging words from Psalm 73:23-28,
“Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever. For, lo, they that are far from thee shall perish: thou hast destroyed all them that go a whoring from thee. But it is good for me to draw near to God: I have put my trust in the Lord GOD, that I may declare all thy works.”
