Day 2388 of the 7 day Bible verse challenge.


Matthew 5:16 NIV

We're all looking for good. Well, most of us anyway. These lives in this place are tough, and they're even tougher when we look around and see nothing but hardship, anger, division, and rampant sin. It can become nearly impossible to keep our heads above the surface of all the dark that’s around us. And trying to do so only leaves us worn and weary because so often it takes everything we have. Being surrounded by so much negativity is bound to start pulling us down as well. That's why the message of this verse is more important than ever!

As we talked about in yesterday’s post, God has done a lot for us and we owe Him a lot in return. We owe Him the honor of living our lives in the very best way possible. We owe Him a humble heart that is willing to serve Him rather than ourselves or anything else. We owe Him the willingness to rise up above the foolishness of a sinful world to live our lives reflecting His light so that others can find a little bit of hope in a place that doesn’t have much left to offer. This world isn’t going to collectively get its act together anytime soon. So it’s up to us to help people find Christ and His peace in the midst of the downfall.

One of the things that I seem to talk about quite often is how we’re here on a mission. This place isn’t our home and these lives aren’t going to last forever. They’re sort of an audition. They’re our chance to show God just how seriously we take His calling to live good lives though a willingness to follow Christ rather than our selfish desires. They’re our chance to prove that we know the difference between right and wrong and that our hearts are set on seeking righteousness above anything else. Make no mistake, He is watching to see what we do with these lives and the gift of salvation that He’s offered us.

Our lives are our message. They’re the visual proof of what we say we believe in our hearts. The way we treat others should be a reflection of the immense and endless love that has been given to us. Our cups are overflowing with His kindness so that we have plenty to share with others. That’s how we help make a difference. By doing good in an all too often miserable place. By offering kindness and compassion when most only have hatred and enmity. He calls us to use our lives and the time we’ve been given to point others to Him. And that’s exactly what this verse is reminding us.

So often in life we get busy trying to make ourselves look good to others in order to gain their praise and approval. We do and say what other people want from us so that they’ll like us. But that has never and will never be the point. Worldly praise will fade and eventually mean nothing when this world passes away. Instead, we need to get busy doing good deeds and shining some light in this place. Not to make ourselves look good. Not to gain worldly acclaim or social validation. We do it to help others see that it can be done. We do it to give others hope that not all is lost down here. We do it because this world desperately needs Christ and we have a chance to make the introduction.

The truth is that we’ll never be able to please everyone in this world, so that simply shouldn’t be our goal. Instead, we should live our lives to do our very best to please God. We can all help one other find our way through this land of the lost, but not by becoming just like the world around us and ignoring the call to be better than that. As I said at the top, we’re all looking for good. We all need some little glimmers of hope when everything else seems to be unravelling. We know where the ultimate kind of hope and peace is found. So it’s time that we start living to point to Him and refuse to settle for anything less.

Look, we’ll never get everything right. But if we all try a little harder to do good and remind one another that not all hope is lost then we’ll all be better off because of it. There will always be a seemingly overwhelming amount of darkness around us for as long as we’re here. So let’s try to shine even brighter because of it. Let us live our lives to bring glory to our Father through hearts set on reflecting His light for all around us to see. We’ll never make a difference by pointing to the world or what’s going on it. But if we point to Jesus, well, there’s simply no way that it can’t help make things better because He is where we find every kind of good that we’re looking to find!

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