Set On A Hill
"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." (Matthew 5:14-16). God did not send us here to labor in obscurity and die in anonymity, alone, forgotten and unnoticed. He sent us, every last one of us, to be the light of the world. He wants each of us up on that hill shining our light for the whole world to see. When we boldly march to the top of that hill, when we unabashedly show our love for our Father in Heaven and for our brothers and sisters and glorify God with our good works, we will encounter opposition. People will tell us that our candles are far too plain to occupy such lovely candlesticks, that our lights are the wrong color, or they're too bright, or not bright enough, to stop making such a spectacle of ourselves. These are the attitudes of the bushel people, the hiders, the fearful, the vain or the self-conscious, the doubters, the falsely humble, the lovers of the dark. And sometimes the loudest voice shouting at us to turn out the light is our own. We may sometimes be frightened of shining so bright that everyone can see us. That's OK to be scared, as long as we trust in the Lord and shine anyway. It may be scary up on the hill but God did not create us to lurk in the dark. We may say that it is enough to share our light only with our family and our closest friends. But God did not say that we are the light of the neighborhood, or the light of the town, or the state, or the country. He said we are the light of the whole world. There is something about our particular light and no one else's that would benefit every single person in the whole human family. Jesus Christ suffered an infinite amount because He couldn't bear to face an eternity of heaven being dimmed by losing the special, irreplaceable, indispensable light of even one of His brothers or sisters.
