Light in a Dark Place

Want to see something really funny? Some time when you are staying the night at a friend’s house, wait until after you have turned out the lights. (We all know nobody goes right to sleep anyway.) Wait until your eyes have adjusted to the darkness, and then throw the light on and be ready to laugh at your friend as he squints in the bright light. Oh, and I almost forgot to tell you: your friend will be laughing at you too!
Isn’t it amazing how bright a normal old light bulb is when you’ve gotten used to the darkness? The darker the night is, the brighter a light seems. The darkness doesn’t diminish the light at all; it actually makes it brighter by contrast.
Our Christian testimony ought to be like that. Philippians 2:15 says, “That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.” In order to shine brightly as God’s lights here in this world, what must we do?
As Christians, the children of God, we have the responsibility to be three things: blameless, harmless, and without rebuke. Those three characteristics, all closely related, giving us the idea that we must be above reproach, pure, and faultless. In our testimony before the watching world, we should be known as being above reproach. It is not enough just to be “good.,” we must be above reproach.
If somebody lies about us and says that we did something evil or said something off-color, it should be laughable. Everybody should know that as a Christian, we would never say or do that. Being above reproach involves a habitual pattern of living that does what is right. It protects us from slander. When somebody does something wrong, we should not be the first person everybody points at as the culprit. A Christian brings reproach on Jesus Christ when he is characterized as a troublemaker, a prankster, or someone who is perpetually doing the wrong thing.
As our world grows more and more evil, Christians should shine more and more brightly. Just like that one light bulb that seems so bright in the middle of the night, we ought to shine out brilliantly in our dark and evil world.