“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16 KJV)
In His simple way Jesus is telling us to remember who we are, who created us, and who bought and paid for our salvation.
God wants to change us, but not only on the surface. God doesn’t want to change the way we look. He wants to change who we are. He wants to clean us up from the very core of our being. When we try to put on a mask we are interrupting His work because we are trying to look like we are changed. But it’s not real. Jesus calls us to influence the world toward become “conformed to the image of His Son.” We are called to be Christ-like in everything we do. Not part, not some things, not pick and choose, but to become Christ-like in EVERYTHING we are, say, and do. To do it we have to be authentic, have faith in Him that changes us from the inside out. Anything less is useless to Him.
Jesus is challenging us to make a focused effort to live in contact with people who need to know Him. We need to be involved with non-Christian people. In our context, it means we need to make the effort to cross paths with people who don’t know Jesus’ love and the hope He offers. When you are blessed enough to live in the light, make sure you don’t hide it. Be available enough to reflect it to others who are still living in the darkness. That’s the only way you will ever influence them.
It also means that we will come across some people who, on the outside, really believe they are living a Christian life but in their heart, they are hurting because of various reasons. They have shut the door to God. On the outside we see the smiling “How are you - I am fine” attitude. On the inside they may be just the opposite. May people today say they are Christian, but on the inside they are angry at God or have cut God out of their life because of a past hurt or offense. We cannot judge them. We are all sinners. All we can do is let our Christ-like attitude influence them in a way only God knows can be useful. And that is to lead them back to Jesus Christ. The rest after that is in God’s hands.
There are four verses near the beginning of Jesus’ most famous sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. In this message, Jesus called his followers to the highest standards of conduct. He challenged us to "turn the other cheek" when we are struck on the right one. He commanded us to love our enemy, to forgive people who do us wrong, and to be sure we act with the purest motives. He said there were two roads, a wide road that leads to destruction and a narrow one that leads to life, and he said we ought to choose the narrow, hard to follow path. Now Jesus is calling those who follow Him to choose to be a godly influence on the society in which we live.
Many people will say, “Easier said than done.” Nobody said it would be easy.
Everything we do in life becomes evidence of who we truly are. What does our life's evidence say about us? Does it say that we merely profess to be a follower of Christ or does it reveal our love and true devotion to Him? While our goal should not be a morally perfect life, we should strive to have a walk with the Lord that is consistently growing and changing to resemble the One whom we serve.
"A man's life is always more forcible than his speech. If his life and doctrine disagree, the mass of onlookers will accept his practice and reject his preaching."
C.H. Spurgeon
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