Lights In the World
Philippians 2:14-15 NKJV
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world,
Yesterday in church, I spoke about moving away from negativity. I will not go into the details of the message, but my concluding point was that we are not negative people; we are children of light, quoting Ephesians 5:8. And as children of light, we are to live differently, and in the case of yesterday’s message, live in positivity as opposed to negativity. I have now been around almost long enough to sound like the wise elder statesman. Notice I said sound like, not I am a wise elder statesman. But I have noticed that one of our greatest witnesses for Christ is living differently than the dark world around us. In a negative world, a genuinely positive person will stand out. In our verses for today, Paul is encouraging the believers in Philippi to do exactly that, stand out.
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorts them to live differently, in this case, without complaining and arguing. This verse is another great example of how timeless the scriptures are. If the Philippian believers were instructed to abstain from complaining and arguing, then how much more are believers today subject to the same instructions? It seems as if many social media platforms thrive on complaining and arguing. But that is not to be our way.
Complaining and arguing do not make us stand apart. The absence of those two traits will help to make us blameless and harmless children of God. Identifying with being a child of God should be a good way to adjust behavior. We are different, changed from the inside out, and we are to live as God’s children. I expected a certain level of behavior out of my three children when they were under my roof. Our Heavenly Father does not expect anything less of us.
And we are living differently, not only because God said so. But we are living differently in order to stand apart from a crooked and perverse generation. We live differently because we are to shine as lights in the dark world.
We can’t shine to the world if we are living just like them. Paul was not asking the Philippians to strive for something that was impossible for them. He knew what God had done in them and was confident they could follow his inspired directives. Paul knew that the children of light could shine.
Application
Identify with being a child of light with the life and light of God within you. We have the capacity to live blameless and harmless and to shine our light to our world.
Prayer
Lord, show me how to better shine my light as one of your children to the people in my world.