Multi-colored Light

To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. (Isaiah 8:20)

Are we the children of the light or not?

What kind of light are we emitting?

Does it serve the purpose which God had when He called us?

Some of us are very inquisitive. We want to know and understand a lot more than is commonly accepted. We read beyond the scope our education and vocation is content with.

I do not quote scripture because it is the only thing I read. I quote it because it is the only text that is accompanied by God and His power. Like Peter said to Jesus, He has the words of eternal life. We do not dwell exclusively on the word because we are simpletons. Like Paul of old we may be more read than the philosophers of our day, only that we have realized the only word that can make a difference in anyone’s life because we have seen so much of that difference, first in our lives and second in the lives of people the world had trashed.

When we talk of light spectrums, we are talking bandwidths and what they can do.

An X-Ray is light that can penetrate flesh and so is used to look for defects in bones. There is light that can only be seen with special glasses and cameras like they do when shooting movies in the dark and even security cameras.

Yet I know there are some who do not know that light can disable a mosquito and render it harmless in the night when it is supposed to be most active. That is a light of a particular spectrum and frequency range.

Let us leave animals for now.

Have you ever noticed that there is a particular light that is found in drinking places? And we are talking about ALL, from those village bars to high end restaurants and hotels.

Just go to a restaurant that also sells liquor and it will be as clear as day. The whole place will be so full of light, even though some may be dimmed, but the place with liquor will have a different type of light. I hear that that light resonates with the senses that crave alcohol so that one drinks and drinks without feeling drunk. Again you will notice that drunks never collapse in the dens and bars. It is after they leave that their bodies become too inebriated to carry itself.

I believe that the particular light activates a craving for drink and keeps the body in check until he leaves the environment. If I became more spiritual, that light activates particular demons in the drunkard that will make him unable to leave the den. After he leaves the den, the demon loses his activation and this explains why the drunk becomes unable to function.

It explains why many people who start going to bars to have a soda, sometimes with an excuse to evangelize the drunkards, end up becoming drunkards. That light may have a crippling effect on the body. And you are worse of if you are unaware of that fact.

Why don’t people get drunk at home, even the ones with bars at home? I believe the absence of that light may be the cause as it could be impossible to take over someone’s faculties without that light.

What about discotheques? Does it just happen or do the owners know what exactly they are doing? Again why are those lights predictable?  I believe there is a purpose.

That is why it saddens me when I see a church or Gospel concert employing those same lights in their services and events. This is the reason Jesus said this.

For the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light. (Luke 16:8b)

The devil knows what he is doing. We are fools if we think we can employ his tools for God’s kingdom. And we terribly undermine our enemy when we think we will prosper God’s cause by making the best of His enemy’s tools. We forget that God rejects anything even with a stain of the other world. That was the reason the Canaanites were cleared. That was the reason even animals were killed due to their association with the sinfulness of their owners.

What do we do when we mix the Gospel with something else? We simply stain it, causing it to give a light that is not pure (white). But it gets even worse. It operates on a different spectrum, activating a different response than what we may be intending. People may be flooding to our church or person but for purposes different from the Gospel of Christ as our ‘gospel’ has been stained.

What am I talking about? You may be wondering.

Do you, like me wonder why some churches are full of sinners who are not even afraid of parading their sin? Do you ever wonder what draws a politician who was with a witch the previous day to a church yet will never be convicted of what he knows is contrary to the scriptures? Do you wonder how a harlot can end up leading ‘worship’ in a church?

Could it be that we are emitting a light that draws people to us and not Christ? Could we be like the disco that draws people in for the entertainment being offered at our ‘event’ and ‘venue’?

There is one verse I believe is instrumental to my argument today.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)

Christ lifted up has only one result, drawing people to Himself and not to anything and anyone else. And His presence deals so conclusively with sin that we can conclude that He is absent when sin is visible. This means that the light being shed has a different spectrum than His light as His is pure (white). It therefore has no shades and does not decorate anything to appear different from the way it is. It just shows what is, the way it is.

Let us look at some of the spectrums and the result they give in our congregations.

We went to an event and some pastors said something that shocked me. They said that their anointing for ministry created no room for them to confront culture, in other words their traditional beliefs and practices. They therefore had no issues offering beer (not even an equivalent) to satisfy culture.

Either I was too shocked to speak or that they were not open to explore even what the Bible says concerning such things that I did not confront their hypocrisy. Of course we were also in someone’s event.

I remember when I was going through the negotiations before I got married. There were some non-negotiables that I respectfully asked to be removed from whatever was required because I was a Christian, and a minister at that. There were things I refused to do because they would have compromised my witness, whether my in-laws thought so or not. And they respected me for that.

Can I be salt if I taste no different from what I am supposed to savour?

Ministers, even believers who are afraid of confronting culture with the Biblical culture have no chance at all to redeem culture. They are giving out light that does not show any difference to be craved by the unbelievers. The closest they can be is a light in the drinking den, just enough to make the world able to see how they can access their sin and wickedness.

Christianity is countercultural. It operates by standards so different from the world. The closest I see in the Bible is Simeon and Levi responding to Shechem desiring to marry their sister after raping her.

Agreeing with everything our culture demands is giving out a light that does not offer any hope for those trapped in that culture. The light might look beautiful and colorful, but it does not offer any directions to the wayfarer. You need redemption from that folly to offer any hope to the lost in sin.

Why do people get into ministry? In the not so distant past (when I was growing up), many joined ministry because it was the profession with the lowest requirements. You could go to a Bible school when your grades were useless. In other words, you are a reject. That was the qualifying grade for ministry.

What does that produce? How can hopelessness produce the best result?

People associated ministry with inadequacy. To date I battle people who wonder what I am doing in ministry with all my skills and training. And I know I am not alone as ministry was almost always associated with failures.

And I do not mean to say that God can’t use failures. He still uses them. But rarely, if ever, do you see God in the Bible calling someone who was just lazing around, rejected by the community because he was just a statistic.

What kind of light do these failures radiate to their community?

Of course today ministry is sought out as probably the most highly and least demanding occupation on planet earth. I just need a pulpit and good presentation skills and I can have a mega church in a few months. I know of some who even take bank loans to start churches because the returns are very attractive. Then they will be able to pay themselves whatever they will as that is their investment they are recouping.

What kind of light does this minister radiate?

I had a friend in school who got ‘saved’ to be made a prefect because a prefect in that school was really privileged. How did I know that? He had told me before he decided. He ‘backslid’ when his term ended. He went back to smoking and chasing girls (it was a mixed national school).

Again we know there are many believers who are like that in the leadership of our churches.

What kind of light are they emitting?

There are Christian leaders who campaign and even bribe to be given leadership positions in church. Others are not dirtied by campaigning and bribing because they cleverly make sure there are others who are doing it for them. And many times they will without fail clinch those positions as the spiritual man will NEVER campaign to lead.

What kind of light does that kind of leadership emit?

There are those who use their leadership positions in church to enrich businesses being run by their supporters. I have heard pastors make a few persons’ businesses so visible that you wonder whether the owners have paid any advertising fees. Others bring those businesses to pitch even on the church compound for maximum impact.

I am not saying we do not support our people in business. What I ask is what kind of light a pastor emits using the pulpit to market a business instead of preaching the Gospel? What kind of light does that emit?

Of course we know that any light will draw a crowd. Light is like a watering place. It will always draw a crowd. The kind of light you are emitting will determine the kind of crowd you will attract. The spiritual sensitivity of your crowd gives away the light you are emitting.

If you got into ministry because of the visibility and influence it gave you, do not be surprised when everybody who comes to your church adores you and your leadership. The light you emit draws people to your person, however hoarsely you cry that Jesus is the one you worship. Jesus just happens to be the formula you use to emit that light.

If your leadership is unquestionable, you and not Christ are the leader. Again the light you are giving is drawing people only to you.

If preaching against sin, even visible sin in your congregation, has become almost impossible, stop cheating yourself that you are preaching Christ. If positions in your congregation are directly proportional to money and position instead of spirituality, your light does not point people upward, irrespective of the myriad of verses you may quote.

And if the poor have no place in your church, then the anointing you have is certainly not from Christ. Christ’s anointing brought hope and help to the vulnerable and disadvantaged.

You see, light from Christ draws people to Christ and nowhere else.

And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (John 12:32)

What kind of light are you emitting?

Could the light you emit be opening people up to drunkenness? Could it be drawing them to bashes and dancehalls? Could it be drawing serpents and scorpions? Could it be drawing harlotry? Could it be drawing sorcery? Could it be drawing thievery?

This is because you are emitting some light and that light will draw a crowd to you.

Does the light you radiate draw people beyond yourself?

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. (Jeremiah 17: 9, 10)

Will you allow God to search your heart to enable you know whether the kind of light you emit is friendly to the Gospel you proclaim or a hindrance to the same?

God bless you.