Light of the Lampstand

Light of the Lampstand – Shining into the world

This was a very humbling experience of God’s grace working that the Lord would like me to share. In relation to the last 2 posts: Flow of God’s Grace and The Fuel of Grace, the Lord showed me what happens when the fuel of Grace is lit, and the Light of the Lampstand (Christ) is shining forth out of these temples. Lord, I thank you and praise you for this lesson and I pray this testimony blesses and encourages others out there. In Jesus I pray, amen –

Matthew 5:14-16 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.

It’s amazing to see the Word of God come alive in a believers life. Sometimes, I want to hold back on revealing the light from the lampstand because I know how pride can get involved. But after contemplating this, the Lord reminded me of repeated confirmation to reveal the things He reveals to me. Also, if I’m not revealing His glory, then I’m hiding the light of the lampstand under a bushel. In the end, I have to thank and praise God for this and pray that it blesses you.

To give a quick background on a part of my life. I was once hugely challenged with anger. (It still comes up in the form of frustration and anger still shows its ugly head sometimes.) Nonetheless, during a career I had at CoreComm, there was no light, only darkness. My lampstand was not even present. I can come up with all kinds of excuses and blame others, but the bottom line is that I treated people terribly. We were driven by results for the company, while having no compassion for people. The company established high expectations and I was paid to enforce them. If employees didn’t meet them, I fired them. Basically, it was either my job on the line, or theirs.

Then, I turn to the Lord and things started to change in my life. Drug use, drunkenness, anger, fornication, etc. all started to get repented of. Lot’s of prayers, analyzing of self (watchful), obedience, faith, and being filled with Christ were some of the keys to turning things around. As I finished my career at CoreComm in the last year or 2, things started to change. People would say “You’re a different person.” Even though the ugliness would still come out here and there, people could see the light and were mentioning it to me. Now I can see that this was the Light of the Lampstand.

Ok, with that background out of the way, let me actually get to the testimony. :) There was a supervisor who worked many years for me. Man, this poor guy.. I treated him like crap. Always yelling at him for his team’s performance, etc. *heavy sigh* Well, we connected recently on Facebook and a couple of months ago, we met for coffee. Recently, we met for coffee again. What he said to me revealed the light of the lampstand and the grace of God flowing –

It went something like this – “Joe, to be honest with you. I hated you. You were a very angry person. When you first messaged me, I was like “What does this expletive want?”” He went on to reveal that he could see a change in my life and that I was following Jesus Christ. This brother confessed that he has a challenge with anger and he doesn’t want it affecting his family or his life. He said “I noticed your 180 change and thought that if you could do it, I could do it. I wanted to meet to see what transpired.” He was basically saying that he needed what he saw transpire in my life. He was witnessing the Light of the Lampstand. We have spent both meeting in discussions about God, the enemy, the Word of God, Jesus, etc. He is a brother who is seeking, knocking and asking. Please hold him and his family up in prayer. The Lord knows his name.

This is why in my last post, I pleaded with the brethren to let the grace of God flow freely through these vessels. Now, I’m starting to see that the Lampstand is filled with fuel of Grace from God. The wick (soul) will either line up with the world or line up with Christ. When we are born again, bam.. God sets a match to the wick and it shines forth into the world. When we are not born again, the wick is never lit and we are a regular person that lines up with the world.

So once again, I plead with any believers who are reading this. “I beseech you therefore brethren..” let your light shine forth before men, so that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father. You will never know who is watching and who can receive that transfer of grace from the Light of the Lampstand. Let the whole world see it! Blessings to you and yours.

joseph