Isaiah 60:1 “Arise, shine, for your light has come,
and the glory of the LORD rises upon you.”

God’s perspective and our perspective are often so different. This is a statement by God to every believer in Jesus Christ His Son, yet so many refuse to believe it. A line from The Glass Menagerie applies to them, even though the original isn’t meant spiritually: “I may rise, but I refuse to shine.” When we refuse to believe what God has done for us in Christ, it might as well not have happened. This applies not only to eternal salvation, our “ticket to heaven,” if you will, but to our daily walk of victory over the wiles of the devil. We are assured that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8:37) However, we walk defeated so much of the time! John’s statement in 1 John 5:4 is spot on: “This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” Paul calls faith “the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.” He knew well that the attacks that come against us can be like flaming arrows, but he had experienced the reality that faith is stronger. Faith is itself a gift from God, (Ephesians 2:8-9) but each one has been given some measure of faith already. (Romans 12:3) Faith could be called “spiritual muscle,” because it must be fed and exercised to grow. We feed faith by reading the Bible and associating with, or at least reading about, people who are mature in faith. We exercise faith by acting on it, choosing to trust God rather than our senses or the many voices of doubt in the world. When we do that, we discover that the promises of Scripture were indeed given to us, and that they are fully operative and powerful. We will rise and shine, not with any glory of our own but with the Glory of God, which He has so graciously poured out on us.

I am finding increasingly that my role as a pastor is that of “faith trainer.” These days we not only have trainers in the gym, we have “life coaches” and a host of others. I am not the source of faith for anyone, but I can encourage them to reach out and receive the faith that God offers them, and to exercise what they have received. I am in the middle of a fairly intense time of that with some people, and if I look at my own abilities I would certainly be tempted to throw in the towel. However, I too need to exercise the faith I have been given! It’s no good urging others to do anything I’m not doing myself. I need to walk in the peace that comes only from trust, from “knowing Whom I have believed.” (2 Timothy 1:12) Every year Christmas is a hectic season with so many things on the schedule, and most years I end up pretty strung out. So far this year things have been different, but I must keep my focus on the One who will enable me to do everything He calls on me to do. (Philippians 4:13)

Father, thank You for the privilege of sharing the grace You have poured out on me. Thank You for the invitation that came yesterday to give a testimony at the Pastors Conference next month. Help me be an open channel for You toward each individual, each group to whom You allow me to minister, so that one by one, church by church, city by city, nation by nation, the Body of Christ may be built up, for Your glory. Thank You. Hallelujah!