The darkness is real. It is still lingering all around you.
Rip the match over that little sandpaper strip and ignite the little stick to life! Flick your thumb in that short quick motion and turn on the flashlight. Melt the wax off the tip of the wick and give your candle the flame it is hungering for. Flip the switch. What good is having a light source & not shredding back the darkness with it? What’s the point of placing 100 lights in one room while the rest of the house remains shrouded in darkness?
Listen believers! Light your torches & plunge into the thickening darkness. Ease into the black corners, the lowly out-of-the-way places. Head underground if you have to. Take the back alleys. Find a patch of the prolific darkness all around you. Then set it ablaze with the light of the good news that God misses those who are far from Him. He wants them back in his sunlit arms.
What good is the salt in the shaker? Shake it out! Fall onto some tasteless meat. Sprinkle yourself into the cracks & crevices of your own personal mission field. You know the one. You call it ‘My Life’. Season the unique culture, relationships, acquaintances, locales & interests you find yourself blessed with. Salt isn’t for church. It’s for the world.
Is God surprised by the people you work alongside, live near, sit next to, play with? Is it by accident that you live where you live, work where you work, sit where you sit in class & play where you play? Are you salting these people & places?
What about a new metaphor? The phrase ‘bleeding into society’ is ringing true in my spirit. It makes me think of the very real, very wet, very precious sacrifice that my Savior poured out for the world. It brings to mind the way a bit of dye soaks in and spreads into the very fiber of a cloth - in it, around it, through it. The cloth drinks in the dye - absorbs and receives it. But the dye must first come in contact with the cloth.
Are we doing all we can to make sure this color-changing grace seeps into the fabric of the lives all around us? As the body of Christ as a whole & as individuals in particular, are we bleeding into society? Or are we shrinking away from it – creating our own safe Christian version of it? The dye must touch the cloth.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” Luke 14:34
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” Eph 5:8
Lord, what do you want me to do to make a dent in the lostness right where I live? Help me bleed into society, be salty salt, be shiny light. Show me how I can help you in redeeming this place for yourself.
Rip the match over that little sandpaper strip and ignite the little stick to life! Flick your thumb in that short quick motion and turn on the flashlight. Melt the wax off the tip of the wick and give your candle the flame it is hungering for. Flip the switch. What good is having a light source & not shredding back the darkness with it? What’s the point of placing 100 lights in one room while the rest of the house remains shrouded in darkness?
Listen believers! Light your torches & plunge into the thickening darkness. Ease into the black corners, the lowly out-of-the-way places. Head underground if you have to. Take the back alleys. Find a patch of the prolific darkness all around you. Then set it ablaze with the light of the good news that God misses those who are far from Him. He wants them back in his sunlit arms.
What good is the salt in the shaker? Shake it out! Fall onto some tasteless meat. Sprinkle yourself into the cracks & crevices of your own personal mission field. You know the one. You call it ‘My Life’. Season the unique culture, relationships, acquaintances, locales & interests you find yourself blessed with. Salt isn’t for church. It’s for the world.
Is God surprised by the people you work alongside, live near, sit next to, play with? Is it by accident that you live where you live, work where you work, sit where you sit in class & play where you play? Are you salting these people & places?
What about a new metaphor? The phrase ‘bleeding into society’ is ringing true in my spirit. It makes me think of the very real, very wet, very precious sacrifice that my Savior poured out for the world. It brings to mind the way a bit of dye soaks in and spreads into the very fiber of a cloth - in it, around it, through it. The cloth drinks in the dye - absorbs and receives it. But the dye must first come in contact with the cloth.
Are we doing all we can to make sure this color-changing grace seeps into the fabric of the lives all around us? As the body of Christ as a whole & as individuals in particular, are we bleeding into society? Or are we shrinking away from it – creating our own safe Christian version of it? The dye must touch the cloth.
“Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again?” Luke 14:34
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.” Eph 5:8
Lord, what do you want me to do to make a dent in the lostness right where I live? Help me bleed into society, be salty salt, be shiny light. Show me how I can help you in redeeming this place for yourself.
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