Waist Deep 2018 - August 13


Matthew 5: 16 “In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” (NIV)


The purpose of serving others should never be to draw attention to ourselves.*


In the book Catch 22 (and the movie made from the book), the catch is that pilots who were insane were exempt from flying missions, but anyone who wanted to be exempt clearly wasn’t insane so once you accepted the exemption you were no longer eligible for it. This verse sounds a little bit like a Catch 22: if I let my light shine before men, won’t they see me instead of God?  If I do something well, how can I not get the glory for it? On the other hand, if I perform poorly, how can God be glorified?  

At our church camp, the campfire area is located down an unlit path. At night, when someone ahead of me carries a flashlight, I can see the way – but I can’t see the person who is carrying the light. In the same way, when we shine our lights on the path, we show the way and God gets the glory. Light doesn’t shine to call attention to itself but to illuminate or reveal. But you can’t do either if you don’t have light.


Our light is not our good deeds but the means by which people see that they are good.*


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Waist Deep 2018 - November 21

Image
Colossians 4: 6 Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone. (NIV) While we’re concerned about being fresh and creative in teaching, it’s wiser to make the Bible simple and clear because it’s so powerful in itself.* Knowing the answer is not the same as knowing how to answer. That conversation of ours that Paul says should be full of grace – that is the answer: the Good News. We make it even better by adding some salt so that people can stomach what we are telling them. Adding salt does not change the content of the dish, it merely serves to make it more palatable. Some people like more salt than others. We have to know how much salt to add to suit each person’s tastes – that is, we have to know how to answer them. While we should flavor the message with salt to suit the person’s taste and the occasion,* we must not compromise on the rest of the ingredients. We must remain true to the reci...
Read more

Waist Deep 2018 - September 30

Image
Acts 16: 6–10 Paul and his companions traveled throughout the region . . . having been kept by the Holy Spirit from preaching the word in the province of Asia. . . . they tried to enter Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus would not allow them to. So they . . . went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision of a man of Macedonia . . . begging him, “Come over to Macedonia and help us.” . . . we got ready at once to leave for Macedonia, concluding that God had called us to preach . . . to them. (NIV) God is in charge of leadership, the destination, and the way church growth occurs.* The people in the province of Asia, and in Bithynia and Troas, needed to hear the gospel as much as the people of Macedonia. There was no earthly reason for Paul and his team not to go to any of those places. But the doors to these mission fields were closed to them. Their “Macedonian Call” meant that they would trade one fertile field for another. Modern missionaries sometimes h...
Read more

Waist Deep 2018 - February 25

Image
I Chronicles 22: 8 “But this word of the Lord came to me: ‘You have shed much blood and have fought many wars! You are not to build a house for my Name.’” (NIV) God always writes the last chapter.* Life doesn’t always turn out the way we thought it would. I graduated from Bible college and thought I would spend my life in “full-time Christian ministry.” Didn’t happen. I took a few wrong turns along the way but most of my life has been lived according to God’s direction. I have been blessed beyond anything I could have dreamed up on my own - but it wasn’t the life I expected.   David probably didn’t expect to be a man of war. He was a shepherd, a poet and a musician. But life (and God) took him down a different path. He shed so much blood in his day that God would not allow him to build the temple. He had blood on his hands – and some of it was innocent blood - but David was following God’s direction when he led Israel into battle. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely ...
Read more