If you are a follower of Christ, then you are light and warmth in a world blanketed by darkness and cold misery. Your beacon is one of personal evangelism in which you tell others the good news of Christ. You are not a light because you are a great preacher, speaker, writer, prophet, or public figure. You are a light because your entire life has been changed and reoriented. You have been rescued from that blanket of dark misery because someone else obeyed God and told you about the good news of Christ. That someone else spent time and energy to align you with the direction you should go. Perhaps that person walked some of the path with you. Their obedience to God’s call for evangelism in your life was literally life-changing for you. It has been so life changing for you that you are now called to the same obedience, and you now live a life that shines! Or at least you should shine, if Christ is living inside of you.
Consider the words of Paul in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Paul is telling us about a wholesale restructuring of his life. His life is no longer simply for keeping religious rules, or for status, or for survival, or for the pursuit of pleasure. He now lives his life with true purpose, and every aspect of his life is governed in some way by that purpose. Paul didn’t mean for that truth to be limited to great apostles like himself. He meant it to be pursued by every person who claims kinship in the family of God (1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Corinthians 10:33).
The truth is that when your life is properly aligned with God’s purposes, and you are pursuing obedience in every area of your life, then you will speak, preach, write, model, serve, disciple and help others, in whatever ways God has gifted you, to have the same goodness you possess. You don’t have to get on a stage, or teach a Sunday school class. You don’t even need to go door to door. But you will find someone to share the good news with. And you will orient that person in the way they should go. You may even walk some of the path with them. Then, when they have reached obedience, you will pray for them to find someone to do the same.
But your work will not be over. You are still a follower of Christ. You are light and warmth in a world blanketed by darkness and cold misery. You will find someone else, and you will shine on them with your life, and they will hear good news.
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