• Let Your Light Shine Before Men

"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid(Mat 4:14)

Just as we have read in my previous post, we should shine just like the stars 🌟.

https://read.cash/@QueenRay/like-the-stars-d5c2e968

Also in the prompt writing by @JonicaBradley on Darkness, we see that when light gets to a place, it illuminates and changes every situation. Every hopeless situation turns to life.

https://read.cash/@QueenRay/darkness-i-came-out-shining-as-the-light-that-i-am-87ba5569

Now, what am i saying?

We should let our light shine so bright so that we won't be intimidated by smart or powerful people who might want to oppose us.

A little child who can sing "there is a green hill far away..."is showing deeper wisdom than a brilliant professor who doesn't believe in shining as light. You don't have to be shy and say nothing of your faith. Let people know you for who you are.

Many, all in the name of saving face refuse to let people know them intimately. They are scared of what people will think of them. But it shouldn't be all about ourselves.

• What does it take to be Light?

It takes two things to be light; it takes being different from the world and at the same time it takes being involved in the world.

i. First, to be a light, you must be different.

Light is different from darkness, if its not different, it's not right at all. If you consider yourself as light, but you are exactly light everybody in the world around you, then you are wrong. There is more to light than just being different though.

ii. The second thing it takes to be light is that you must be involved.

Light doesn't do any good when it is placed under a bucket. You do not put your bedside lamp under the bed. It does what it is designed for when it's brought out in the open and put on a stand.

Be different... yet involved! It sounds different but that doesn't mean it's easy. There's always a temptation either to go with the flow and do whatever the world does, or else, if we insist on being different, it's tempting for us to just form our own little cliques and colonising customs and have as little to do as possible with those who aren't like us.

It is when you are different from other people and yet stay involved with them, that you have most influence.

Here's the challenge, of course we dress like everyone else in the world except we take some thought of modesty. There are no special uniforms for Christians. We go to the same lectures. We eat the same food they eat and because we stay so close to them and are like them in so many ways, the differences become all the more striking to the people who know us and all the more upsetting to them.

That is what happens when we live as salt and light, when we are in the world, we don't belong to the kingdoms of this world but we are members of the kingdom of heaven.

Only favoured people in the world can spot this. They see good deeds and praise our Heavenly Father.

How then do we make a difference?

We make a difference in this world by letting our light shine in our actions, words and daily life, we should live an exemplary life a life that gives glory to God. Make no mistake of living as if life has no ending. Know that we are here only for a short while. One day we'd leave this sinful world for a better home at last.

Make it possible for people to say you are the best of your kind. Once they've seen you let them feel your presence.

This reminds me of a story of my friend in school, Temmy

She didn’t know what woke her, and no matter how many times she relived that night, no matter where the nightmare chased her, she never want to stand up.

The weather turned the air into a wet, simmering stew which drench. The humming fan on her dresser stirred it, but like sleeping in the steam pumping off the pot.

Still, she was used to that, to lying on top of moist sheets, with the windows open wide and the faint hope even a tiny breeze would slither through the sultry.

The heat didn’t wake her, nor did the soft rumble of thunder from a storm gathering in the distance. Temitope went from sleep to awake in an instance, as if someone had given her a good shake or shouted her name in her ear.

She sat up straight in bed, blinking at the dark, hearing nothing but the hum of the fan, the high pitch of the cicadas, and the lazy, repetitive hoo of an owl.

This was because she had an horrible past which was so dark and almost took over her existence. It keeps hunting her. She had been raped and accused of seducing the rapist.

What an horrible darkness!!!

But light came at the end for her. She graduated in flying colours, determined to forgive her offenders and she was free at last.

exerps from my book Battered and Bruised

Read my other articles via this links 👇👇👇

https://read.cash/@QueenRay/the-dead-lamp-d9f028ec

https://read.cash/@QueenRay/i-shine-bright-as-the-star-2c67d605