"The Lord is my light" - Psalm 27:1
When I was a teen, a pastor told me that the life of faith, in response to God's love, includes three things: 1) love God, 2) love people, and 3) love puzzles.
The puzzles part, he told me, is where a Christian always tries to listen to others and get to know them. It's what Jesus called "seeking and saving." As you listen to more and more people and get to know them, you try to fit the pieces of people's lives together with others, like a puzzle, helping people work together with their commonalities and various God-given gifts so that they can encourage each other in Christ and reach out to the surrounding community, inviting others to Christ.
It's the Biblical picture of the "Body of Christ" where different parts of the body fit together into one body, like puzzle pieces fitting together into one picture.
It's a great image. But there's one major requirement for doing puzzles--light.
I've never been able to do a puzzle in the dark, especially the puzzle of working together as the Body of Christ. And praise God that we don't have to.
In today's verse, we hear that the Lord is our light so that we don't have to put energy into our fears or anything else that would prevent us from listening to one another, working together, and bringing lives together, like puzzle pieces, in Jesus Christ.
In John 8:12, Jesus reiterates how he shines as light so we can see what we're doing. He says, "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life."
Ultimately, what Jesus helps us to see is God and the people in our lives and how, in following Jesus, our lives can come together in mutual encouragement and loving service to other people around us so that they can see and serve God too.
As you go about your day today, look at the people (family, friends, and even strangers), believing that Jesus is shining as light for the world so that we can see plainly how our lives can fit together as one...
Namely, like a puzzle, which when finished, shows one picture, namely, God's light and love for us all in Jesus Christ.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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