LET YOUR LIGHT SHINE by John
McDuff Let your light shine before men, so that they may see your
good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. Matthew
5 verse 16 There are many things connected
with the Christian's pathway which worldlings cannot comprehend. They know nothing of the high
and hidden walks of spiritual experience. What is said of the
workings of the divine life in the soul is regarded by them
as foolishness and fanaticism. Its internal principles, its
constraining motives and impulses, its heavenly aspirations, its
rapturous bliss, and its agonizing struggles are things which these
strangers cannot comprehend. But still, there is much which
they are able to understand, such as whatever is consistent
in character, whatever is honest and straightforward between men,
whatever is kind and compassionate in behavior, whatever is forbearing
and forgiving under insults and injuries. Such features, when
unostentatiously exhibited, excite their attention and generally
call forth their praise. The manner in which the ordinary
duties of life are discharged is something so tangible that
it lies within the province of their own observation. These
things they can understand, and it is of the highest importance
that all who profess to be Christians should be distinguished by an
exhibition of these practical fruits of righteousness. What
if a small band of Christians were placed in some locality
by whom the principles of the gospel were fully lived out? What a powerful effect, we may
suppose, would their simple presence produce? Let them be connected
with those around them by the ordinary engagements of life,
but without employing any direct means to promulgate their Christian
views. There they are blameless and
pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved
generation. Their hearts are filled, not
merely with love to God, but with sincere and ardent affection
for all by whom they are surrounded. Selfishness, pride, resentment,
censoriousness have no place among them. Their entire spirit
and deportment are influenced and controlled by those noble
and generous and God-like sentiments and feelings which Christianity
inculcates and inspires. The holy religion they profess
would appear in its true character and beneficent tendency and men
would be constrained by the good works which they beheld, to glorify
God. May the Lord strengthen you with
all might, according to His glorious power, that you may live a life
worthy of the Lord, and may please Him in every way, bearing fruit
in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God. This Puritan devotional has been
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