Theo R. - January 2, 2004

Light is everywhere. When you turn on the lights in your room, you see light. When you go out into town at night, you see all kinds of lights - traffic lights, street lights, stores, and businesses.

Light can be positive or negative.  Positive light is appealing, and it leads you to something good, or gives you good use. An example of "positive" light could be the light used to brighten the sign of a church during evening service. Another example is to brighten up your bedroom after dark. Negative light appears to be appealing, but in reality, it steers you in a direction that you don't want to be in. A good example of "negative" light could be the neon signs the advertise Joe's Bar, for example. Those neon signs look appealing enough to make you want to check out that bar and order a few drinks of beer.

When it comes to us being positive examples of our faith, we need to not shine the light on our own by shining it in one direction or shining it too bright, but be a reflection of the true light that God shines on us.

Firstly, when we shine the light in one direction, we see our faith for only what we want our faith to be. For example, you don't want to greet the newcomers of your church, but you really want God to help you have straight A's in high school or college. When we shine the light in one direction, we use God in a selfish matter - mainly as a God of convenience.

Secondly, when we shine the light too brightly, we wind up annoying people big time. It's just like turning on a flashlight, and shining it right into their eyes. After more than 30 seconds of that, they'll get annoyed to a point where they demand that the light is away from them. It's no different when we try jam our faith in everyone else's face. We say things like "Jesus is the only way..." or "You'll burn in Hell!" to most people - especially in a mean or condescending way. Actually that's the last thing most people want to hear when they believe in something totally different. Enough people as it is think we're mean, self-righteous people as it is (which many of us are far from being mean or self-righteous), and we don't need to portray God as a mean and condemning God, but a God of love and compassion.

Finally, we need to let God do the shining for us, and allow His light to reflect on us, so His light will be evident in the good example we set upon ourselves. Our good example is set through the selfless things we do on a day-to-day basis - from saying a friendly hello to your next-door neighbor or helping someone carry their belongings. When people see that, they see light that shines upon us, which is reflected from God. Therefore, they'll see that God is the true source of our lives.