But God expects US to be light

Isaiah 49:3-4, 6The Lord said to me, “You are my servant, and you will bring me glory.” I [Isaiah] replied, “But my work seems so useless! I have spent my strength for nothing and to no purpose. Yet I leave it all in the Lord’s hand; I will trust God for my reward.” … And now God says, “I will make you a light to the Gentiles, and you will bring my salvation to the ends of the earth.”

Matthew 5:14-16 [Jesus said] “You are the light of the world … Let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father.”

Philippians 2:14-16 Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that no one can criticize you. Live clean, innocent lives as children of God, shining like bright lights in a world full of crooked and perverse people, holding firmly to the word of life.

My just-turned-one granddaughter Juliana watches and tries to imitate everything her older sister Liliana does. The second Lili chooses a toy, that’s the one Juju wants. Yesterday Lili climbed into an empty box pretending it was a train car. Of course, Juju immediately had to climb in too, though she had ignored the box until that moment.

It made me think, “Who am I trying to copy? Who sets the standard of behavior for me?”

A confession:

I sometimes get angry and complain about people who don’t know God because they behave like they don’t know God.

How nonsensical is that?

Another confession:

I sometimes feel outrage at people who claim the name of Christ yet speak and live as if they don’t know God’s love and have never taken seriously Jesus’s command to show that love to the world.

But do I look and act any different from the people I judge?

The Lord calls me back, with words like James 1:19-21 and 26, Be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to get angry. “Human anger does not produce the righteousness God desires … If you claim to be religious but don’t control your tongue, you are fooling yourself, and your religion is worthless.”

The conversation between God and Isaiah in chapter 49 is one you, like me, have probably had with God at times of discouragement. But the dialogue becomes more interesting as we continue reading, because it seems God is not talking just to Isaiah, but more profoundly, with his own son, Jesus, the true light to the Gentiles. After all, Simeon prophesied over the infant Jesus, “He is a light to reveal God to the nations” (Luke 2:32).

That’s NOT how Paul and Barnabas interpreted Isaiah 49:6, however! In Acts 13:46-47, they tell a crowd in Antioch of Pisidia, “We will offer the word of God to the Gentiles. For the Lord gave us this command when he said, ‘I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.’”

So, it’s a partnership, right? Because it’s the light of Jesus shining in our hearts that we are to reflect to others (2 Corinthians 4:5-7).

Today I’m asking myself, how am I personally doing with being a light and revealing God? If this question doesn’t humble me, nothing will. I invite you, as I am doing today, to read and pray carefully through Romans 12. I think it’s a great description of what living differently looks like.

I’m asking the Lord to shine his light into my soul to reveal my shortcomings, convict me of my need for him, root out my self-righteousness, and fill me with his compassion. I want to imitate the Lord. I want him to be my model. And I want to notice and learn from the ways people in my life reflect his light according to the standards of Romans 12.

Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you … (Romans 12:2)