light of the world

Shining Our Lights

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

Okay I know that in Jesus day there were definitely no electric lights! In His time you either had to use an oil lamp or a candle, either of which needed a wick. But you could also consider a light bulb as a sort of wick. Just as with the others it does not have the capacity to produce light. Instead it provides a place through which the oil, candle wax or electric current passes allowing it to shine. Oh yes we do need to continually go to Jesus to be sure our lamps are filled with the oil of His Spirit. But we also need to be sure that our wicks be kept trimmed and clean so that His flame can burn its brightest. When the light burns the best no one will even remember seeing that little wick. I am so glad that Jesus promised he would not put out a smouldering candle. Instead He snips off the old dark and hardened portions of my wick so I can burn my brightest for Him!

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:16 NKJV

In the Light of Day

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If you think of darkness as a loss of the ability to see the path ahead then in all honesty it feels like a very dark time in my life. My plans for the future have been a bit scrambled by my wife’s battle with cancer, changes related to my partial retirement and the seemingly unending struggle to find where exactly we will be living next year.

Though the details of your life may differ the

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challenges remain the same. We are all put to the test moment by moment to decide where we will choose to go, how we will decide to get there and who we will travel with. In the swirl of daily battles our hope remains in the promises of God. He has promised to be our light. all we have to do is to follow. We do not need to know in advance the twists and turns, the cliffs to climb or the dangers that lie ahead. We do need to completely trust that He has promised to walk ahead of us and to lead us all the way to the city of God!

For he looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Hebrews 11:10

All is Bright?

/ pastorpete51 / 1 Comment

 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. John 1:5

Silent night Holy night / All is calm all is bright      Josef Mohr 1818

I am not sure of the exact inspiration for Josef Mohr when He wrote the words for Silent Night. What strange word are these? What Silent night? What holiness could be seen? From the braying donkey carrying Mary to Bethlehem to her cries piercing the night as she gave birth; there was no silence or holy place given her. ” All is calm all is bright.” Yet it would be hard to imagine Joseph being calm when there was no better place for Mary than a stable or cleaner spot to lay her child than a feeding trough for the cows! Yet the oddest of all these lines is “All is bright.”  All is bright? I have memories of milking our cow at 4:45 a.m. in a barn without electricity. My only light was a candle stub which I placed on a beam. There was nothing at all especially bright about those cold early mornings in the barn.

And yet by faith we sense the deeper reality of the silence of angels, stooping low to see the Savior. We recognize the holiness of the child conceived by God’s Holy Spirit. We feel the calm assurance of Mary and Joseph’s hearts as everything happen

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ed just as the angel had foretold. We see the brightness as the first flicker of God’s light in our dark and waiting world. From that first Christmas till now, the darkness has never put it out!