Devotional Guide
For the week of October 15, 2006

CHRISTIAN MISSION

About shining a bright light

To read the Bible in one year, today Read: 2 Samuel 4-6.


To Know:

³And God said, ıLet there be lightı; and there was light.² (Gen.1: 3)

We spent many summers on Monhegan Island. Twenty-five years ago the island
was not electrified. Although a few families owned their own generators,
the
island as a whole relied on gas and oil for illumination. Oil and gas
lamps
take time and effort to light. Oil lamps are especially hard to use since
they must be filled, trimmed, and the globe washed to get sufficient
light.
Nothing could be more different from Monhegan in the 1970ıs than our back
yard now. We have a light that sees us coming and ignites itself. It is
as
if the words, ³Let there be light² were written into the bulb.

³Let there be light² are the first recorded words of God. Light not only
made the world habitable, it made it hospitable. Lighting up the world is
the Christian mission. Darkness was once on the face of the deep, now it
is
in the unbelieving human heart. The same word that illuminated the outside
world can light the world within. The Psalmist wrote, ³The unfolding of
thy
words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple.² (119:130) The
message of the cross is the light of God. Our mission is to make the
sinful
heart hospitable to God. Is any greater mission conceivable?


To Do:

Creation itself is a dim light that shows the existence of God. His power
and deity are on display in what he has made. It is the message of the
cross
that says to the world, ³I love you.² The cross of Christ is the love of
God. When we publish the news that the one on the cross is God the Son who
is dying for the sin of others, we shine a bright light into this dark
world.


To Ask:

Father, stir up in me a desire to know and share the good news of your
willingness to forgive sins for the sake and in the name of Jesus Christ.



10166$-10166


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