His light shined ‘for a while’

Saturday   12-19-15  Home in Modesto 

Scripture reading:    John 5 - 6

S=Scripture  O=Observation  A=Application  P=Prayer  SOAP for the soul.

S.  John 5:35  John shone brightly for a while, and you benefited and rejoiced. NLT

O.  “For a while.” John the Baptist’s ministry was limited to a relatively short time.  Apparently he became famous about the time Jesus turned 30 years old.  He was a flash of bright light in a world of darkness.  Four hundred years had passed since the Prophet Malachi had been on the scene.  The Old Testament scriptures were taught in the synagogues, but the teachers did not speak with authority like John and later like Jesus.* John bursts on the scenery out in some desert place probably preaching to a handful.  He looked different, dressed differently, ate differently and seemed to resemble Elijah who prophesied almost 900 years earlier.  His fame attracted great multitudes.  His name was on the lips of thousands of people.  But as suddenly as he had burst upon the scene, his bright light is snuffed out by King Herod.  John had been too powerful, too revealing of sin.  His words spoken in the desert had shaken the palace of a pitifully small king... and whose wife brought down the axe.  

A.  Now I am here on this planet “for a while.”  How long?  I cannot tell.  Jesus Christ is calling on me to be a light in a dark world.  John was a flash in the dark.  He was here... and then he was gone.  But nobody ever forgot that bright flash of “Holy Spirit-Light” that drove strong men to their knees in repentance and pulled them to bury their sins under the waters of the Jordan River. 

P.  Oh God!  How much longer do I have?  I thought it was all over five years ago.  I was retired, at the end of my usefulness and ready to let my flickering candle flame to turn into smoke and then... silence.  But You crashed again into my fading life.  You gave me a new start, a new assignment, a new ministry.  You lit my candle again.  And I can hear You saying today, “It’s not over yet.  There is still darkness out there that is awaiting the light.  Your little insignificant candle can become a bright flash of light that may still set aflame a hundred candles more and one of them may become like John the Baptist who will shake his or her world.  So go for it!”  And I respond, “Amen, Lord so be it!”

Ralph

*Matt 7:29 “...he (Jesus) taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” NIV  (Jesus, please give me some of that.)