Light to a broken world – Part 10

Key verse: Isaiah 60:3: “Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn,” (NIV).

The world is broken and in need of Saviour, Jesus Christ. Darkness and evil are rampant in our broken world. There are mass killing, countries at war, fractured families, political divisions and more going on everywhere in our today’s world. The human dilemma is one of brokenness. Christians should rise to the occasion and embrace this reality to shine as light in a world filled with darkness. We are to help heal the brokenness of our world through Christ. We need to point more people to Jesuswho desperately wants them to feel whole and deeply loved. We are to bring hope into a gloomy world filled with hate, uncertainty and desperation. We need to let our light shine even brighter to the world around us.

We are responsible, as followers of Jesus Christ, to bring light into the darkness of this world. Pastor, and author, Charles Spurgeon once said: “The Bible is not the light of the world, it is the light of the Church. But the world does not read the Bible, the world reads Christians! ‘You are the light of the world.’” The church is the great hope of the world. The church is not just a gathering of people, it is a force of light with a mission to eradicate darkness in the world with the good news of Jesus Christ. The Church is not designed to hold the light, only to be admired, but to carry the light to the dark, to be experienced by broken humanity.

Many people living in our world are broken and we should help them heal and put their lives together. There are people with broken dreams, broken hearts, broken marriages, broken families and broken lives. But all hope is not lost because Jesus is the Master Potter. He is the One who takes the broken, the shattered, the marred and the imperfect into His hands. Then, with care and Master’s workmanship, reshapes them into a beautiful new something. When you feel your hope begin to fade, turn to Him and He will never leave you as you are. Jesus truly cares and the song writer wrote: “Jesus knows all about my struggles.” That you are broken is not the end of the story. There is not a “too broken” for God. He makes all things new. In Revelation 21:5, God spoke words of hope to the broken, hurting, depressed and discouraged by saying: “He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

The fact is in good times, we feel so close to God, so confident about His love for us and what He is calling us to do. At other times, God can seem very distant, and we can feel both an interior darkness and a darkening of our spiritual vision, including our sense about the future.

In the face of such extremes, we need to remember the basic truth that when we have faith, we always have light. Faith always gives us enough light to take the next step on life’s journey. We can draw strength from some of the heroes of the Old Testament who are great examples of what it means to live by faith. The stories of how God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt and that of Abraham, who trusted in God’s promise that, he would have offspring even though he was “as good as dead.” They trusted in God’s promise not minding the difficult situations they were in. You too can trust God today in your situation.

• Today’s nugget: Bringing hope into a gloomy world. Prayer: Lord help me to be a source of light to others. Prayer lines: 08033299824. E-mail:[email protected]. Rev. Abel Ukachi Amadi, General Superintendent, Assemblies of God, Nigeria.