Children of the Light

If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand. Philippians 2:1-4 (Message)

We live in a world full of pushing and shoving. Who is king of the mountain can be the talk around the soda machine, the coffee station, and if desperate… the water fountain. There’s pecking orders and egos galore, but who is willing to serve? I mean, if we knew for certain that our Lord would return tomorrow at noon would the ambition for position and prestige be all that important?

I don’t think it would. I think getting right with God and with others would be the agenda for the day… and probably into the night! Like a looming inspection folks would scurry around to set things in order… clearing their record with the Lord with some sort of repentance… forgiving old hurts, giving instead of grandstanding and helping instead of taking…

The truth is no one knows the day of the Lord’s visitation. Yet, we can know the season, we are “children of the light” (1 Thess. 5:5). We can look around us and see the brutality of this silk-lined-sewer that we currently survive in but understand, we are “strangers and pilgrims” in the world and to its devices (1 Peter 2:11).

As a Christian we’ve been called to be… Christ-like. That’s turning the other cheek but not being a doormat. That’s facing conflict, not cowering…, demonstrating courage and admitting mistakes and admitting that your attitude was wrong. It’s picking ourselves up and changing… that is what repentance is all about… a change in attitude… a change in direction!

It’s being honest when it does not add to your promotion points and standing for the truth and falling on your shield when the poor, the needy, and the under-trodden are ruthlessly run over… when you, I, we walk this kind of walk then do we need to worry about the mess this world is turning into? Do we then need to fear the approaching appearance of Christ?

When we turn-off this world and turn-on to Christ and make Him our obsession, give Him all of our heart, mind, and strength then and only then do we see the elements of this world for what they are… falsehoods, deceptions, lies, and fakes… the truth is Christ, in Christ, and through Christ. We walk in Him and we become children of the light… children of truth. When we are children of the truth… we won’t need to seek people out to share the Gospel with… they will seek us out! May we then have the heart to give these prisoners… a helping hand!