Parable of the Lamp
16“No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. 17For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all.
18“So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.”
I have had times in my life when this reading scared the hell out of me, sometimes quite literally. I’m still nowhere near ready to have the world know my every thought or action. Talk about a horror movie. And I take no solace in knowing that most other people’s most private secrets are likely to be similar to mine. Theirs are secret now for the same reason mine our. We are ashamed.
How that shame somehow fails to keep me from my every sin at one time amazed me. I couldn’t believe that knowing what God knew about me, and knowing that someday all of the universe would know it, wasn’t enough motivation to keep me from ever committing a single sin. But it wasn’t.
Then I thought, my love for Jesus must be woefully short or I wouldn’t sin. Yes, I believe that is true, but nothing seemed to stop the sins. I know I love Jesus and I desire to do his will, and yet I do not soooooo many times. And the closer I am to Jesus, the more the Holy Spirit helps me to see my sins, sometimes to the point of discouragement. Yes my love needs to continue to grow, but in this life, I can’t see me ever loving Jesus so much that I completely stop sinning.
So if my shame and my love is not enough to overcome my sin, what is?
Just last night I, a fellow religion teach, and our students spent some time with Jesus reliving his Way of the Cross. What Jesus did, that is enough.
Jesus, never stop calling me to great love for you and yours. Holy Spirit, never stop revealing my sins to me and inspiring me to change. Father, give me the courage to take up my cross and follow your Son in this life so I may someday be forever sinless.
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