One of the boldest statements you will find in Scripture is the time Jesus put it out there and declared, “I am the Light of the world!” (John 8:12)

Perhaps even more mind boggling is that He also said, “YOU are the light of the world!” (Matthew 5:14)

It is a startling statement, but it’s right there in red. He said it, I believe it, and to hell with any other opinion.

And if you are the light of the world, is it not time to stop skulking in the shadows?

Read More?

https://davidleemartin.com/let-your-light-shine/

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00:00:02.690]
Hey, folks, I just wanted to jump in here today a little later than usual, been a busy morning doing various things, schooling kids with Larna, trying to organise a few things for, like, my daughter and stuff, I’m sure with many of us will be in the same boat right now having to kind of kind of just roll with the punches. But today, as I was running, I try and run a good number of times a week to just try and be honest to get rid of Christmas Bell, if I’m honest at the moment.

00:00:38.880]
That’s my present goal. But I wanted to talk to it. As I was running. I was thinking about how Jesus said that he was the light of the world. I guess it was the fact that we’re having a rare sunny morning here. Maybe that’s what provoked me to think about that particular thing. But, you know, it was a very bold statement that Jesus made when he said, I am the light of the world. But even more more stunning, really more like mind boggling is the fact that he said of his people, you are the light of the world, Matthew.

00:01:19.710]
I think it’s in. Matthew, let me just pull up this scripture here so you can note it down if it’s of interest. Yeah, Matthew 5:14, Jesus said, you are the light of the world, and my question today to you is, as the light of the world, is it right that you should allow your and your light to be hidden under a and stored away and stashed away somewhere and not actually let it shine?

00:01:55.230]
I know that there’s like numerous reasons why we procrastinate or why we don’t take action. We are all prone to it. In fact, even today, Larna had to pull me up. I was kind of faffing around with some sound equipment on behalf of my daughter. Unrequested. It was just me and Larna kind of pulled me aside and said, sweetheart, you’re procrastinating again. And sometimes we can get ourselves busy with a lot of things to really put off doing some of the things that no one we know we need to do.

00:02:33.390]
And number two, maybe we don’t particularly want to do them. You know, there’s some organisational stuff that I’m currently doing in my book publishing business that’s not really the most exciting part of what I’ve built, but I’m the only one presently anyways who can do it. I need to get some systems in place there. But but kind of what I found with systems is if you do not if you do not maintain them, if you do not make sure that you feed everything into them consistently and diligently, they break down very quickly.

00:03:14.410]
So I would encourage you to put systems in place, whether it’s like for your personal life and growth or whether it’s for like your business life and growth. But, you know, it’s it’s important that we let our light shine, that we don’t allow procrastination. We don’t allow fear. We don’t allow excuses or the many reasons why we will do it tomorrow. I read a quote today, I think it was from Shaquille O’Neal or Shaquille O’Neal or someone I can’t even remember the guy’s name.

00:03:54.690]
I’m sure you may be able to tell me. But he said there are seven days in a week and not one of them is called someday. And so we want to be sure not to put things off to someday. Jesus said you are the light of the world and what you have to bring is important. You know, there’s another story that he told of these ten ladies. Yeah. And all of these ten ladies are waiting for their bridegroom to come.

00:04:25.890]
And five of the ladies, it says, you know, they don’t know when he’s coming in the fire. Five of the ladies have got their lamps ready. They’ve got their lamps trimmed. They’ve got their lamps filled with oil and burning, ready for the return of their bridegroom. Five of the others, the other five had kind of lost. Lost hope, lost faith that he was ever coming back. I guess they just thought, you know, this is this is never going to happen.

00:04:56.670]
It’s never going to work out for me. I’m going to be left on the shelf somewhere. Why should I even try? And we know if you if you’re familiar with scripture, we know the outcome of it. The bridegroom came at an unexpected moment. The five who were prepared and ready and had their light shining at work kind of stepped into their destiny, where as the the other five who had not prepared, who had not been diligent to keep themselves filled and flowing and burning bright, I kind of lost out.

00:05:34.050]
The door was closed and they couldn’t come in. And, you know, although it’s somewhat taking it out of context, I think it’s the same for us. You know, we have you have you you have something special and unique to bring to the world. You have ideas and value that you know, that you carry on the inside. And sometimes it’s just a matter of really mustering the confidence and the courage to step out and begin to that, to begin to share that kind of on a broader basis with the world.

00:06:12.750]
You know, sometimes one of the issues is and and, you know, believe it or not, even people who are seemingly successful struggle with this same thing. We allow our insecurities and our sense of inadequacy to prevent us again from stepping out and just having a go from stepping out and saying, you know, what we may feel is like all we’ve got is this little light of mine. Yeah. This tiny little light, some kind of little insignificant match that we are carrying on the inside that, you know, why would anyone ever want to hear what I’ve got to say?

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Why would anyone ever want to engage with me or learn from me or I see what I’ve got to bring the pictures that I’ve got to paint, the songs that I’ve got to sing. Why would anyone ever want that? I’ve just got this tiny, tiny, tiny little light. But I can tell you something I used to up until recently when the weather got really kind of adverse to to this and then this lockdown last year that’s happening in the UK at the moment.

00:07:28.170]
I used to go out on the hills with some friends on Wednesday mornings and we would drive to a local place and we would go out six o’clock in the morning and walk across the hills and pray together and just spend some time in fellowship. And there was this one guy every time, and I think it must do it every day. You would he would go running in the mornings and he would run over the hills. And for his exercise, he and his dog and he had one of these strapon headlights.

00:08:03.690]
He had like a lamp that he put round his head. And it would show him the way because like up until a few months ago and I tell you, it was really dark in the mornings. I mean, it was pitch dark when we got there. And then we would see the sun come up as we as we were walking. But like even way off, like on there on that kind of in the distance on the hills here, you could see this chap coming.

00:08:31.980]
He may have had a little light, but in the pitch dark, he was very much able to No one be noticed, no one be significant in the broad vista that was before us. And, you know, it doesn’t take a big light to lead the way when so many people are walking in darkness or ignorance and by darkness or ignorance. You know, obviously there’s a spiritual connotation to that and their spiritual connotations to all of these things that I’m saying, significant ones.

00:09:06.900]
But even on a practical level, many people are stuck in their creative projects because they simply are in the dark. They don’t they maybe don’t know that you can today. You can publish a book completely for free. Maybe they don’t know that you can even publish a print book, OK, for completely for free. And if someone purchases that book, Amazon or some other print on demand company will print that one book and send it to anywhere in the world.

00:09:39.540]
And you just share the profit with it with whatever platform you’re selling from. Yeah, no cost, no money down. Many people. May not know that many people may not know that there is so many different for every problem, there is a solution. Yeah, and you can be a problem solver. You can help someone else get where they want to get. You have skills, you have experience. You have a history that that can help someone else.

00:10:15.220]
Yeah. And sometimes they might be walking in. What you might be in the light. You might be out there thinking, oh wow, this stuff is so easy. This is so easy to do. Why would anyone want to know what I know? How could I ever help anyone else? But like I say, it doesn’t take a big, big light to help and lead someone else if they’re kind of stumbling around thinking, what do I do next?

00:10:42.180]
You have a creative value that you you need to be bringing to the table. And, you know, it’s important as well, I think, for us to realise that this this idea of standing up and stepping out and like looking to share our worth with the world, it does take courage. It does take time. It may mean stepping outside of your comfort zone. Believe me, standing here and choosing to do these live, just jump on here and do this every day of the week, choosing to kind of put myself out and develop in a podcast and some different things, lots of different ways in which I’m actually looking to step outside of my comfort zone and what I’ve learnt to be kind of comfortable with stepping into new areas, because I absolutely believe that each one of us is called to let our light shine.

00:11:52.860]
You know, stepping up and stepping out may need may mean learning and growing and filling your lamp with some fresh oil, you know, really going out there, getting some fresh information, some fresh knowledge, fresh wisdom, fresh understanding how to do the things that you want to do. And really, there is no glowing without growing. All of us are lifelong learners. Every one of us is is is stretching in and moving into new things so we can become more useful to other people.

00:12:31.470]
And and but it’s worth it, you know, be really unleashing your genius is so important and so worthwhile. Whatever it takes, whatever the end, whatever the investment of time, whatever the investment of of money. And it doesn’t have to cost a lot. This is the thing. You know, you can you can begin right where you are right now. The scriptures tell us in Hebrews ten, verse fourteen. Again, I’ll bring this I’ll bring this scripture up.

00:13:07.180]
So for those of you who are interested, yeah, it says, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. Hebrews 10 verse 14 one one version says, Let us provoke one another and to good works, let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And I encourage you today, you know, and if I can do anything, I’m like this is one of the ways that I have thought that I can actually.

00:13:46.700]
Help to motivate and encourage you and other people to acts of love and good works, that is important to me. That’s something that I want to do. That’s something that’s that’s very much on my heart. And I really believe that together we can make a difference. You know, one of the. One of the another way that that I’m looking to to do this is I’ve opened an online I call it an academy. It’s it’s kind of a grand title.

00:14:22.700]
It really is. I’ve opened something called the Christian Creative Academy. You can check it out at ChristianCreative.Academy if you’re interested. And we’re really committed to help other Christian creatives, artists, authors, entrepreneurs step up and step out and begin to share their awesome with the world looking, looking to do all we can to help equip the Saints for their specific work of ministry. And your work of ministry can be so diverse. I mean, Jesus is again another scripture.

00:15:04.650]
I’ve not got this I’ve not got this written down somewhere. OK, but let me just look it up here. There’s another scripture that I think may be helpful. If I can find it here, I may. It may have been elsewhere that that I saw it. But the the scriptures tell us that each man has been given a gift, OK? Each man each woman has been given specific gifts to share with the world for the upbuilding of other people, for the edification of other people to help and to build and to bless other people.

00:15:49.220]
And I believe that you are called to do that in the name of Jesus. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today. If you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.