BE THE CHANGE IN THE WORLD

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Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world.

1 Peter 2:11-12 NLT

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

God didn’t send Jesus from Heaven to earth to maintain the status quo. Immersed in darkness of sinfulness, the world needed radically changed and this needed a radical reformer.

The coming of this radical change was foretold by the prophet Isaiah when he wrote these words in the ninth chapter of the Old Testament book that bears his name:

The people who walk in darkness will see a great Light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a Light will shine.

For a Child is born to us, a Son is given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. And He will be called:

Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

His government and its peace will never end. Vv. 2, 6-7 NIV

Upon His arrival and entry into Gospel ministry, bringing salvation to all who would place their belief in Him, Jesus let everyone know that the prophesied Light had come and was shining brightly on the earth. In the twelfth chapter of John, He proclaimed:

“I am the Light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” v.12 NIV

Jesus brought all those who believed in Him out of the darkness and into the glorious light of His love and redemption. He then did something else amazing. He made all Christian believers His light bearers and affirms it in these words from His famous Sermon on the Mount:

“You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in Heaven. Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus came to be the change in the world and after His life on earth finished at the young age of 33, a death after a wrongful conviction and subsequent execution, He passed on the responsibility of change to His followers, each a light sent out by Him to continue to illuminate the sinful dark with the glorious brilliance of the Savior.

The Light was replaced by millions upon millions of believer lights who have and continue to carry on His work in changing the world with good deeds prompted by the will of God the Father so that glory might be ultimately brought to Him.

As we look at our scripture passage today, we find Peter talking about the obligation His Christian readers had to intentionally seek to alter where they were for the cause of Jesus and the Gospel. Look again at his words here:

Dear friends, I warn you as “temporary residents and foreigners” to keep away from worldly desires that wage war against your very souls. Be careful to live properly among your unbelieving neighbors. Then even if they accuse you of doing wrong, they will see your honorable behavior, and they will give honor to God when He judges the world. 1 Peter 2:11-12 NLT

It’s important to note here that Peter was writing to Christian brothers and sisters who were “God’s elect” and exiled and “scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia” (1 Peter 1:1). They were as much “temporary residents and foreigners” there as they were in the world they one day would leave on their way to Heaven.

The call for them, as much as it is today for us, was to “keep away from worldly desires that wage war against” the soul. In order to achieve this, Christians were (and are) “to live properly among...unbelieving neighbors”, behaving honorably even when the way they were being treated dishonorably in return. The light was never to be put out so that someone would blend in with the darkness so prevalent in the world. Rather, they were to be the change with the hope that others would one change as well, even as late as when God “judges the world”, an act that would cause even the staunchest non-believer to “give honor to God”.

Friends, we, like the Christians in the first century, have a powerful calling, not to passivity but proactively, a bold calling to shine the light of Jesus inside us with everyone we see, all with the hope of being the kind of change in the world that He was.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.