Shine Anyway!

Acts 5:41

The apostles left the high council rejoicing that God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.

I had been awakened by Dispatch in the middle of the night. I had a homicide call, and I was needed. I jumped into the Scientific Investigations truck and headed out.

The house was dark, and we didn’t want to touch light switches for fear of messing up potential fingerprint evidence. I pulled out my big flashlight and headed into the house. The only lights in the rooms were my flashlight and a TV playing some kind of infomercial.

My flashlight kept lighting dark rooms until the house had been photographed and documented. I was thankful for a good light to shine a path for me.

Jesus said in Matthew 5:14, “You are the light of the world—like a city on a hilltop that cannot be hidden.” Or a flashlight in the darkness.

The thing about light is that it pierces the darkness, and the darkness doesn’t appreciate it. As Christians, we are called to shine God’s light into the darkness of this world, and the world will not always appreciate it.

That’s what the apostles went through in today’s passage. They were shining God’s light, and the darkness got pretty upset about it. They decided to shine anyway!

Your friends, your family, and your community may not appreciate you shining God’s light into their darkness. Shine anyway!

You may get ridiculed, or called bigoted or old fashioned. Shine anyway!

Don’t let the darkness around you snuff out your light. Keep shining God’s love and grace anyway.

Light pierces the darkness! Shine anyway!

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