Simon Says, Part 3

When our god is God, when we live a God-centered life, we live into the grace-filled gifts of being citizens of heaven, here on earth.  When we follow God, we love others and we love God.  We share what we have been given, we serve. 

When we allow ourselves to be changed by the world, we end up empty.  Following Christ means that instead of being transformed by the world, we are transformed by God, and everything we do becomes a way that God can transform the world.

This past week I was listening to a sermon by Adam Hamilton, a United Methodist minister at the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City.  He told a story about Robert Louis Stevenson, a 19^th century author.  As a young boy, Stevenson was sitting in his room, watching the lamplighter go from gas street lamp to gas street lamp, lighting each one with a torch.  He placed his ladder, climbed up, lighted the lamp and then moved on the next.  The young boy was fascinated by this.  His father opens his bedroom door, and Robert doesn’t even notice that someone has come into his room.  He just keeps watching as more and more lamps are lighted on the street.  Finally his father asks him, “Son, what are you looking at?  What is so fascinating outside that you don’t even notice that I’ve come into the room?”  Robert answers, “Daddy, I’m watching that man out there knock holes in the darkness.”

Paul stands in the prison and says, “Join in imitating me.” 

It is our task.  We are to imitate Paul as he imitates Christ.  Christ is the light, and now we are the light of the world, pushing back the darkness.  Knocking holes in the darkness of the world.