Wednesday, May 21, Matthew 5:14-16

hey guys,

how have you been doing at letting your light shine brighter and stronger this week? What have you been doing differently? Perhaps putting the characteristics such as humility, compassion, forgiveness, or a hunger and thirst for righteousness into practice?
Jesus wraps up the teaching of The Beatitudes with telling us our duty to shine our light into the darkness.
Now, I know Pastor Eran dug deep into these verses last week, so I won't belabor the point. But I did want to add just a few more things:

First, if you are not a light in your world then the darkness around you isn't changing, its not being extinguished, you're not making a difference.

Second, Remember that being a light isn't only about what you do- but also how you act.

Third, let's look at some ways we hide our light:

• being quiet when we should speak- we are all guilty of that once in a while, but maybe we should be challenged to not keep our mouths shut concerning sharing the love and truth of Christ to others
• going along with the crowd- this is for real, we can't make a difference in this world if we act like the world
• denying the light- what does that mean? it means you are denying the impact you can really have on someone because you have Jesus in your life
• letting sin dim your light- this is logical, if Jesus is the light that shines out of us, then when we hide our light- or our light gets snuffed out, then we have allowed sin to take over the light
• ignoring the needs of others- we learned about all the Beatitudes, which are basically examples of where our characters should be if want to be like Christ- mercy and humility were two of them. And it would be impossible for us to be humble and merciful if we ignored the needs of others.

So, do a heart check today- do you feel like any of the above examples of hiding your light are evident in your life? If so, just give it to God right now and begin finding ways to bring your light out into the open, like a city on a hill.
Don't keep the light of Christ to yourself- get it out in the open and bless someone with it today!!

love ya's and cya tonight,
Pam S.