“Let your light so shine among men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father in heaven.”
Don’t you love the fancy title of this article? This was a thought that I had today and wanted to share it with you. These are some things that we need to do more of and that will make our light shine and glorify our Heavenly Father. We need to love people. I remember a song that Burt Bacharach wrote in the 70’s that reminded us of this: “What the world needs not is love, sweet love...” This is still true in the 2000’s. We need to love people whether they are lovable or not. If those of us who belong to Jesus cannot love people, who can? We need to remember that Jesus loves sinners…of which we all are. We cannot let the rampant hatred that is loose in the world keep us from shining for the glory of God. We Christians need to do a better job of loving each other as an example to the world. We need to hate sin. The sins that we need to hate the most are those that keep us from shining our lights to a dark, dark world. Loving people does not mean that we hate sin less. It is sin that has been destroying the world since Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden. We are not true friends to the world if we just accept sin that is ruining their lives. We do not need to be self-righteous, but there is certainly nothing wrong with us if we live righteously. Jesus did not save us to accept sin as the norm – even in our own lives. We need to be careful what we say to each other. One of the most hurtful things that can happen to us is for someone to use unkind words to us. We also need to remember that our own unkind words can really hurt people. I have received two kinds of criticism in my fifty-seven year ministry: One is criticism that has been given in love, because I needed correction. Second is criticism that has been given in a nasty, hurtful way. I’ve got to tell you that I really, really do not like the second criticism. I try to remember this if I have to be critical for some reason or other. In this matter, I always think of Job’s friends who sat with Job for seven days and kept their mouths shut, and then when they started to talk they made all kinds of false accusations. Think of them before you speak an unkind word. Of course, there are more than three things that we need to do more of, but these are uppermost in my mind today. I think that you will agree that we need to do more of these things. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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