Light up your world

Let me tell you why you are here. You're here to be salt-seasoning that brings out the God-flavors of this earth. If you lose your saltiness, how will people taste godliness? You've lost your usefulness and will end up in the garbage. "Here's another way to put it: You're here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand.  Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand--shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.               Matt 5:13-16 (Msg)

The salvation experience is the beginning of a very exciting journey and not an end in itself. It is the birth of a new you, the beginning of the rest of your life. We are saved to live the life of God that we have received. Your job description as a Christian is to get trained and built up in the church; As you grow, you then go and light up your world, your world being anywhere and everywhere you transact or/and interact. For effectiveness, God appointed some to be ministry gifts for the purpose of equipping the vast majority to do ‘ministry’.¹ Ministry here means serving others in the name of the Lord Jesus. You are no less a Christian being a ministry gift than you are not being one. So, it is okay if you are not a pastor or a teacher in your church, your purpose is to light up your world.

INTEGRITY II

Being a Christian is living like Christ and integrity is a key attribute. If you don’t believe your words then no one else will. To become a person of integrity starts with aligning yourself with the manual for living. A constant study of the word of God will reveal your true self to you and it will relieve you of your need to please men. You learn to say what you know you can do and if you are not sure, state it from the outset. Adding ‘probably’, ‘if possible’ etc to statements when you are not sure will help your listener to know you are not being definitive. But when pressed to give a categorical statement, always mentally factor in unforeseen circumstances. If you are sure that a particular work can be done in three weeks, then ask for a month; the extra week will help cover for events beyond your control while you continue to work within the three weeks deadline.

Thus, there is need to be familiar with details, time being the most crucial. How long does it take for you to get dressed in the morning? how long does it take to do your makeup? how long is the drive from point A to point B? what is the traffic pattern? etc  Most of the answers to the questions above and to several others are personal and it is for you to find them out with time. That it takes longer for you to get something done than others do not make you a good or bad person, it only means you have to start earlier or work on reducing the time.

INTEGRITY

And it came to pass, as they fled from before Israel, and were in the going down to Bethhoron, that the LORD cast down great stones from heaven upon them unto Azekah, and they died: they were more which died with hailstones than they whom the children of Israel slew with the sword.

Then spake Joshua to the LORD in the day when the LORD delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.                             Jos 10:11-13

Hailstones from the sky, sun and moon standing still; surely, this is action-packed, Science fiction stuff. But it is not fiction, neither is it a movie. It is the record of a war that Israel was involved in just a little while after the fall of Jericho and its walls. The war was so remarkable that scriptures recorded that “there was no day like that before it or after it, that the LORD hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the LORD fought for Israel.”¹ You imagine that the opponents must have really angered Israel and provoked God to attract such a severe treatment, but no, Israel was not even the target of the war.