Category: discipleship

Hiding From the Light

Then Jesus said to them, “Do you hide a lamp under a bowl or under a bed? No! You put the lamp on a lampstand. 

Mark 4:21

 

To hide something means you don’t want it found.  You make an effort to keep it from coming to anyone’s attention.   It’s curious though, that we would go to all this effort to light a lamp, only to turn around and find a place to hide this same lamp.

However, hiding the light doesn’t make it go away.  We do try, however.  But light comes and its effects can not be hidden.  It shines on us, illuminates us, and makes us shine.  The urge to hide light seems to be a regular occurence among us.  We want what we’ve been given to avoid detection.

Adam and Eve had this impulse to avoid detection.  It seems that it is something we do rather well, this ‘camoflage’ business.  If we would stop for a moment and think about it, it does seem ridiculous. The reality is that life has been poured into us, and foolishness should be eradicated by now.

Light simply infuses us, and we become radient by His presence.  We could try to fabricate the light, but it is His work in our hearts.  We must move beyond our reluctance and embrace this display and magnification of His presence.

 

A Question About Discernment and Discipline

Question: 

“What if the “desire to excel” isn’t the motivation in allowing sinners into the church? We invite our unsaved friends (worldlings) to church and hope they repent. Sometimes that takes a long time! Is this intervening or being missional? I understand your point that Believers aren’t to live in continual sin but am foggy about what we do with the sin saturated culture around us. Do we draw away or let them draw near?”

My Response:

“Great question/comment.  Jesus made it clear, with the salt & light analogy that we will be distinctive and visible. We need to learn to accentuate and use that distinctiveness, with talent and forethought. All available effort should be used.

The issue of believers in habitual, continual sin should be approached as ‘church discipline’. This falls on people who we call pastors and elders. 1 Cor. 5 gives this oversight a template to follow. It is a sticky thing to judge someone. When we have to, we don’t want to. (Unless the person is a ‘control freak’.)

The issue of sin in the church is interesting. To have water outside a boat is a good thing, but to have water in the boat is decidedly worse. We are to preserve our distinctiveness, without diminishing our witness. It’s like we are a flock of lambs living in a pigpen. By their very nature the are different. One has a sheep nature, the other a pig’s. There will be at times confusion. But the sheep don’t belong.

To sum it up, there is church discipline for believers, that really needs to be in place. But we are missional people. The world is very much like a pigpen. But I say, let them come in and let the Holy Spirit touch them.”

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This was a recent post and follow-up comment for “Through the Sheep Dip”, posted on September 28, 2010.  The link is located at:  https://brokenbelievers.com/2010/09/28/through-the-sheep-dip/

Almighty Father

“Almighty Father, Son and Holy Ghost, eternal and ever blessed gracious God; to me the least of saints, to me allow that I should keep a door in paradise.   That I may keep the smallest door, the furthermost, the darkest, coldest door, the door which is the least used, the stiffest door.  If it so be but in thine house, O God, if so be that I can see thy glory even afar, and hear thy voice, O God, and know that I am with thee, thee O God.”

A Prayer of St. Columba, 521-597 AD

 

Bryan’s Note

We must travel some distance, before something like this will cling to our hearts.  Columba’s journey to the presence of Jesus most certainly gave him a perspective that enabled him to pray with this intensity and this humility.  We cannot dissuade ourselves of his effort and his overwhelming desire to be near Him.  We can only watch, and mark the zeal which took his heart and soul into the burning presence of His presence.  Columba becomes a guide of what is possible and what is to be sought.  We must become (if we are in pursuit) a people radically changed by the reality of His presence.

 

 

Photo: The Power of Unity

Photo:  The Power of Unity

When we come together, we receive from a shared strength, common to every believer.  Connected, we are resilient and strong, and it takes a very great deal to incapacitate us.  It seems that we are organically linked as believers, and that there exists a connection through the work and personality of the Holy Spirit.

That’s how it is with us. There are many of us, but we each are part of the body of Christ, as well as part of one another.  (Romans 12:5)

We must grip the reality that each one has a connection to Jesus AND a connection to each other.  It is not necessarily physical, but it is a real spiritual connection, like plugging into the wall socket.