Friday, August 18, 2023
Bright Lights in a Dark World
Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people. (Philippians 2:15 NLT)
It never was a dull day for Paul and Silas. When we read about them in the Book of Acts, we find them creating a stir wherever they went.
In Thessalonica, for instance, an angry mob shouted, “Paul and Silas have caused trouble all over the world, . . . and now they are here disturbing our city, too” (Acts 17:6 NLT). This wasn’t meant as a compliment. But in a way, it was. It was a recognition that Paul and Silas were making a dramatic impact on their world.
The first-century church consisted of a relatively small group of Christians whose numbers were not large like ours are today. Yet in spite of that, they made a remarkable difference in their culture.
We need Christians today who will take a stand for what is right, because it seems as though our culture is affecting us more than we are affecting our culture. Today with so many people naming the name of Christ, our impact on the world appears to be null and void. We wonder what difference we’re really making.
We’re allowing secular attitudes to find their way into the church and into our lives as Christians. People say they are Christians, yet they live in immorality, have sex before marriage and outside of marriage, play with drugs, get drunk, steal, sue one another, and divorce each other.
But do you know what our world really needs to see? They need to see flesh-and-blood Christians who are living the Christian life in the same neighborhood where they live, in the same place where they work, and at the same school they attend. They need to see the real thing.
In short, they need to see you. God can use you, just as He used believers in the first-century church. Maybe you’re not a preacher, but you can proclaim the gospel message through your life and through your words. You can make a dramatic impact on your world.
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