Prayer To Be Filled With God's Light So We Can Reflect Helpful Light To Others

I watched a show on public television of a family in the 1960’s and a young boy learning to develop photographs with the trays of solutions in the darkroom with a small red light.  What changes have come to photography and displaying photographs.  Now it’s how many pixels per inch on our phone screens and what’s the black contrast of the OLED or LED display. Now honestly, don’t ask me what’s the difference because there comes a point when I don’t think I can even tell the difference.  I heard on the news the other day that there are now televisions with 8K resolution – I’m quite a few generations back from any of that!  My TV service provider went offline the other day and it reset my digital box and I had to downgrade the display in the settings so the image filled the screen on the TV I have – a display which is just fine by my standards, by the way!

But all of these things have to do with one thing – LIGHT. 

You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14-16

Jesus said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”  John 8:12

Thank you Lord for those people who have walked into our lives and brought hope and truth and comfort – real light for our souls.  Thanks for those from whom we’ve learned practical wisdom for daily life.  Thanks for those who have loved us, supported us, and blessed us with their example and their way of reaching out to us so we could come to know and live in Your love.  They really have taken Your command to us to follow You and they’ve shone the light of Your life before us so we could see a way forward.  Their good deeds have shone Your grace and generosity into our lives and we are so thankful for them.

Now Lord, we know it’s our turn and yet we so often find ourselves stumbling around in the darkness of failure and frailties.  Lord, we need You to shine the light of Your truth into our hearts again today and help us sort out what is of You and what is not.  Expose our deeds of darkness and help us to repent and come close to the light so we can be more and more transformed into Your likeness. 

Your word promises us that as we look at how amazing You are, opening our hearts and lives to receive that truth and inviting it to change us, we will be transformed more and more into the brightness of Your image. 

We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.  2 Corinthians 3:18

Lord, fill us with Your Spirit.  Transform all of our thinking, all of our desires, all of our words and actions so we are filled with truth and light.  We don’t much like seeing the dirt and dust that is exposed when the sunlight shines in a room and even less do we like what we see when the light of Your truth shines into our heart and exposes the negative and judgmental and ungrateful and complaining things we harbour.  We are way too self-centered and we need changing. 

For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.  Psalm 36:9

We need to see what needs seeing in Your light and we need the cleansing and refreshing that comes as You wash us with the fountain of life, over and over again with fresh water.  You’ve told us that living in You and being washed with Your Word is how we become radiant, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  That’s pretty amazing but Your word tells us that’s how it is and so that is how it is.

… just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  Ephesians 5:25-27

And so today, as we look at another version of Your words in Matthew 5 we pray that we will be light in our dark world, bringing out the God-colors.

You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.  Matthew 5:14,16