God's Light in a Dark World

Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us. – 1 Peter 2:11-12

The more I develop spiritually the more I feel like a stranger in this world of ours. I can clearly see that we are living in a very depraved society. I have come to acknowledge that I am different now – in a great kind of way. I no longer see the pleasures of this world quite the way that I used to. I also find myself doing very different things than I would normally do in my spare time. I view work differently; I mother my daughters differently and most important of all, I socialize differently. All in all, I am very committed to treading the right paths and making the right decisions. I make every effort to let the Holy Spirit lead me. I am nowhere near perfection and I don’t anticipate that I ever will be.

There are still some isolated times, when I struggle with the two parts that make me whole. As believers we are made up of spirit and of flesh. The flesh is the substance that makes us human and the spirit is the heart that makes us heavenly. As we grow in Christ, the spirit must supersede the flesh. I have come to find that even in the lives of the strongest of believers; the flesh will often war against the spirit. The rate at which the spirit wins over the flesh depends largely on our spiritual strength and strength of spirit can only be gained through the Word of God and living life. It is through our experiences and the circumstances that God has led us through that we get stronger. It is through difficult times and adversity that we develop a strong sense of spirit.

When our spirit man is strong, we can find it much easier abstain from sinful activity. If we have been believers for a while and we still continue to make life-changing decisions based on how we feel, we either do nothing or we crash and burn. Feelings cannot be trusted as they change based on our circumstances. Until we start to walk by faith and work our faith, we will never see real spiritual progression in our lives. If we are really growing, we are no longer lead by the flesh but we are led by the Word of God. People meet us and instantly they know that there is something different about us. We survive and even thrive in times of great adversity. We stand tall and hold our head up high even when it seems the entire world is against us. Even our enemies see the glory of God in our lives. Even though we have the freedom to do whatever we want, we chose to do what is right. Slowly, we become that badly needed shinning light in a dark world. We become like the lamp of the Lord; helping the lost find their way. We begin to reflect the light of Our Heavenly Father.