Light of the World

Happy New Year!  The new year is already one week old - hard to believe.  Have been reading Judges in preparation for our Wednesday morning men's group.  Some pretty interesting history here.  The book of the Judges covers a period of history from about 1350 BC to 1000 BC when Saul was anointed the first king.

There are two things that jumped out to me as I began this study.  First, how fast the people forsook God.  Notice these words in the second chapter of the book of Judges:

 ⁷The people served the LORD throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had seen all the great things the LORD had done for Israel. ....¹⁰ After that whole generation had been gathered to their fathers, another generation grew up, who knew neither the LORD nor what he had done for Israel. ¹¹ Then the Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD and served the Baals. ¹² They forsook the LORD, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of Egypt. They followed and worshiped various gods of the peoples around them. 

Although the stories of how God had defeated the Israelites was known, told, retold and told again; even though the nations around Israel trembled when they heard what God had done 400 YEARS BEFORE with Egypt, the generation after Joshua faded.  They forgot that it was God that delivered them.  They doubted the goodness, testimony and word of God and started worshiping the carved poles and sculpted idols of the nations around them.  Instead of being a light to the nations around them, they became like them.  Their light went out.

The obvious question that I must ask myself is about my light to the world.  Is my candle under a bushel?  Is the light within me hidden because I am too much like the world?  Am I about showing the world what a life obedient to God can look like or do I just look like everyone else - in every area of my life?  Do my finances show that priority?  Does the use of my time?  Do the things that I put into my mind?

Enough to think about.  Will go an to the second thing later.......