My son was ten. He was watching me stoke the fire in our woodstove. I placed a new log on the pile of burning coals and one of the coals fell onto the stove front. I closed the door and placed the poker in the stand. My son picked up the poker and toyed with the errant red coal. Slowly its color lessened and turned black. When it did, Chad put the poker back into its stand. In its brightness Chad was drawn to it, intrigued. When it turned dark and cold, Chad lost interest. Does that happen to the world? Are they drawn to light or darkness? Positive or negative?
“But you are not in [given up to the power of] darkness, brethren, for that day to overtake you by surprise like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of day; we do not belong either to the night or to darkness.” 1 Thessalonians 5:4,5.
We can talk about grace and graciousness. We can write about being quick to listen, and slow to anger. We can preach the Word, and teach doctrines and profess all the right theology. But unless we live these things out in our own lives, we are but an ember set outside the hearth. Soon we go out, become black and cold, and no one gains any warmth from being near us. We must live in a world filled with darkness, but we are not darkness. We are light. To deny the Light within us is to deny the Life sacrificed in our behalf. Can we do this without communing with God through His Word? Can we glow without gathering regularly with other Christians who burn brightly, who are hungry to reach a lost world? selahV
[copyrighted, 2009, SelahVToday, hariette petersen]
