Thought for Thursday, May 30th

May 30, 2013                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

Illumination

Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write; These things saith he that holdeth the seven stars in his right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks; I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience, and how thou canst not bear them which are evil: and thou hast tried them which say they are apostles, and are not, and hast found them liars: And hast borne, and hast patience, and for my name's sake hast laboured, and hast not fainted. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.  Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Revelation  71:5-8

“Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow.”

-          Aesop

Most of us will probably recall that little ditty we use to sing in Children’s Church or Sunday School in days gone by: I think it went something like this:

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine:

This little light of mine

I’m gonna let it shine:

Let it shine,

Let is shine,

Let is shine.

The second stanza went on to proclaim that we would not let Satan blow it out – because we were gonna let it shine.

But when the proverbial ‘rubber hits the road’ and we have grown up and become ‘the grown-ups:’ I wonder how committed we have stayed to our childhood proclamations to allow our lives to shine for the glory of the Lord?

As adults sometimes we become more about the doing of the things we perceive to be the work of the Lord and less about the letting Jesus shine through us. 

Sadly, we become like unto the church in the text above, we have a form of Godliness, but we have left our first love and we no longer have the child-like exuberance and excitement to let our little lights shine.

Is your light a flicker of its former glow: or is your life a full on illumination of the power and glory of God at work within you? 

Prayer:

Father, let your light so shine in me that even the darkest shadows of this world are illuminated by Your glory.