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The Christ Candle

To overcome darkness in life, we need to rekindle Christ’s light, allowing it to illuminate and transform our hearts.
By HELEN SMALLWOOD
Read Time: 5 minutes

Lately I have been very tempted to light a Christ candle. 

I heard a talk about the Lost Sheep parable. The sheep managed to wander away, and the son willfully left. But in the companion parable, the coin was lost inside the house. It was lost by the woman (the ecclesia), and a candle had to be lit to find it. The ecclesia was so dark that the light of Christ had to be rekindled to spread its warm glow.

John wrote 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. (John 1:1, 4, 9).1

Scripture is full of light images, from Eden to Revelation. Finally, in Revelation, we learn there will be no more need for the sun, as “the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.” (Revelation 21:23 KJV). God’s glory will fill the earth.

Jesus described those in the land of Zebulon and Naphtali as “a people living in darkness who have seen a great light.” (Matthew 4:16).

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel shrouded in darkness. The world is slowly closing in, the thorns are choking, and there seems little hope of change. I need the Christ candle. I need the light of Christ to gradually filter into all the dark recesses of my life and heart—to bring to light anything I am keeping hidden from shame or guilt, or I have put in the “too hard” basket.

What am I afraid of? Why do I need to keep some things hidden?

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (I Peter 2:9).

Can we really take God at His word here? Do we really believe that we have been chosen?

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name: you are mine. When you pass through waters, I will be with you; through rivers, you shall not be swept away. (Isaiah 43:1-4 NAB).

Chosen for what?

Nothing between us and God, our faces shining with the brightness of his face. And so we are transfigured much like the Messiah, our lives gradually becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like him. (2 Corinthians 3:18 MSG).

Can we really imagine that? 

Paul writes that he desires that Christ’s life become visible in our lives (Galatians 4:19, Romans 13:14, Philippians 2:5). We can make the invisible visible in our lives! Jesus was the exact representation of God, and we are the Body of Christ. So, that makes us the representation of God on earth. But to be that we have to allow Christ’s light to shine in us and reveal all the areas that need to be swept out and renovated.

C.S. Lewis wrote,

Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of – throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.2

Imagine that! God is living in us.

Jesus answered him, “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:23 ESV).

We had better get the vacuum and duster out and tidy up a bit to prepare for renovation in our lives. Giving up parts of our life for Christ is not easy. We will resist or justify, or just plain hold on as tightly as we can to what we know. What we know is safer than the unknown. But is it?

The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid? (Psalm 27:1).

Jesus said he would send the Holy Spirit as the “guarantee” of our inheritance (Ephesians 1:13-14). The word “guarantee” originally comes from a Phoenician word and is sometimes used in literature for “engagement ring.” What a beautiful metaphor! We become part of the bride of Christ, and that promise is sealed with a ring.

There are many verses about being filled with the Spirit, allowing it to do the cleaning and renovating needed in our hearts and lives. We need to give ourselves up to its work and love.

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.  But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Romans 8:9-10 ESV).
 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own. (1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV).

We now belong to God because we have been adopted into His family.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears[a] we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. (I John 3:1-2 ESV).

So, what does this mean in our day-to-day lives?

We have changed forever, and we cannot return to where we were. Our lives are now different. They have to be different because we have been redeemed by the glory of the cross. We are now Kingdom people, showing the world what it will be like when Jesus is King. Paul calls Jesus Lord, as Jesus now has all authority on earth and in heaven. (Matthew 28:18).

However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2:9-12).
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.  (1 Corinthians 13:12 ESV).

We try to live now as we will live in the Kingdom. If we want peace in the Kingdom, then we live peaceful lives now. Each individual believer is a microcosm of the Kingdom, chosen to be God’s image bearer, to reflect God’s glory on earth, and to reflect the praises of the world to God.

Helen Smallwood,
Melbourne Ecclesia, VIC

 

  1. All Scriptural citations are taken from the New International Version unless otherwise noted.

  2. Lewis, C.S., Mere Christianity, Geoffrey Bles, Publisher, July 7, 1952.

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