Shining Isn't So Beautiful After All

The Lord has been speaking to me a lot about SHINING lately.

Today I was reading in Romans 13 and came across this verse: "Put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light."

Whoa. Armor of light. That brought my mind racing all the way back to Ephesians 6:10-18, the passage that talks about the armor of God. These two pieces of equipment are one in the same. The armor of God includes the weapons God has given us to fight the enemy: the Word of God, prayer, faith, salvation, righteousness, and peace. Only by equipping ourselves with every piece of the armor -- without one piece missing -- can we fight the spiritual battle that we are in.

The passage in Romans 13 shed new light (Haha, see what I did there?) on my understanding of the armor of God. By using the prepositional phrase "of light," after "armor," Paul is tying back to what he proclaimed in one of his letters.

"...Become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe as you hold out the word of life..." (Philippians 2:15-16)

Basically, Paul is commending us to shine like stars as Christians. We are to stand out among the darkness in our world, and we do this by proclaiming the Gospel of Christ. As Christians, we are called into relationship with God and community with other Christians in order to go out and tell the world about Jesus' saving working on the cross.

But how does one go about this? How does one truly shine the light of Christ, and not of self?

Last week I was browsing Facebook when one of my mentors posted this quote. I don't know who it's from or where she got it, but it struck something within me.

"Shining is always costly. Light comes only at the cost of that which produces it. An unlit candle does no shining. Burning must come before shining. We cannot be of great use to others without cost to ourselves."

I don't know if this is a Christian quote or just a philanthropic quote, but either way, it provides an answer to my question.

Shining cannot occur without burning. And burning hurts.

What does burning entail? Paul gives the answer coincidentally -- or maybe not -- just before he talks about shining like stars. A few verse earlier, we read...

"Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God

something to be grasped,

but made Himself nothing,

taking on the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death --

even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:5-8)

That is death. That is burning. That is what Christ our Savior did on the cross for us, and we are called to do the same.

That brings me to another quote (Sorry, the Lord just speaks to me through quotes a lot! Haha.): "Jesus did not die on the cross just to save us from our sins; He died on the cross to teach us how to die on our own cross!"

WOW. That's powerful. No, we cannot forget that Jesus saved us from our sins on the cross. That itself is salvation -- the act of trust and surrendering to God that gives us eternal life. But there was more to Jesus' act than that!

Jesus taught you and me how to die on our own cross by his own act on the cross. Philippians 2:5-8 (above) perfectly correlates with this.

So the call to shining, the call to proclaiming the Gospel among all nations, first involves dying on our own cross. And what does dying on our cross entail?

Surrendering our rights.

Seeing ourself as "dirty, little objects" as C.S. Lewis puts it.

Wasting our life at the feet of Jesus all for His glory.

There is a difference between Christianity without a cross and Christianity with a cross. At an event called "Secret Church" put on by an external ministry organization called IMPACT at my school a little over a year ago, the speaker spoke about just this.

He said that Christianity WITHOUT a cross is comfortable with role-based Christianity. Christians who identify with this type of Christianity do not do anything; they stay put and just go through the motions of church and spiritual disciplines with no real growth.

On the other hand, Christianity WITH a cross consumes, hurts and costs. Christians who identify with this type of Christianity are ablaze for the Lord; they deny their desires and only have their eyes fixed on Jesus. They are not concerned with what the world thinks; they are only concerned about what God thinks. Although they may face persecution, they press onwards towards Christ -- the goal.

What sounds better to you? For me, it's the latter. No, I'm not there yet and every day I must die to myself over and over again. Yes, there are days where I fail. There are days where my flesh wins and my spirit loses. But in the long run, I'm on the road to dying on my cross, because I know that the reward of following God is greater than any temporary reward won by my own strength.

And that's what Thailand is all about. Yes, it may look pretty on the outside, but really, this opportunity is going to be challenging. I'm going to be in a totally foreign location with nothing familiar -- not even the language. But I know this is where the Lord has called me to, so I will not disobey Him.

I would rather die on the battlefield serving my Lord by wearing the armor of light than die in the comfort of my own culture.

"The only call is the cross."

Before You Walk Into The Desert

Last weekend I participated in missionary training for my 3-month trip to Thailand this summer. For those of you who don't know, I will be a journalism intern with Venture Expeditions working to share the story of their work with the impoverished children at their HOSEA Center and the Karen refugees on the border of Burma.

I have been learning about Thailand for the past six months, mostly due to observing the culture at a Thai Christian church that I started attending to fulfill a service learning project one of my classes required last semester. Besides learning about the language, nonverbals, rituals and other aspects of the culture, I have been exposed to the reality of Buddhism.

One day my group partner and I visited a Buddhist temple and were able to question three Thai monks for an hour-and-half. It was the most surreal experiences I've had, and I was still in America. What would it be like when I was actually in Thailand?

I was starting to get answers to that question at the missionary training weekend. As the youngest person at the training, a 21-year-old college student who had never ventured outside of North America, my worldview was the least tapered with. The eight other individuals had been to Thailand for at least three months. I began soaking in all of their knowledge -- specifically that to do with Buddhism. The following are little nuggets of wisdom I gained.

If you want to know the power Buddhism has over Thailand, ask any Thai person and they will tell you this: "To be Thai is to be Buddhist; to be Buddhist is to be Thai." Right now, almost 94% of Thailand is Buddhist, according to the CIA World Factbook. Only 1% of the country is Christian.

Because of the power Buddhism has over the nation, there are strong spiritual forces of evil that roam the land. One of the ladies training me was sharing a story of her experience growing up in Thailand as a missionary kid. Every night her dad would anoint the doors of their home with oil and pray over them, but there were still nights where her and her siblings experienced nightmares. The woman who had previously owned the home would come back and speak enchantments into the bushes at night, unleashing dark spiritual forces that would frighten the children.

She also shared the story of a Buddhist woman her dad and two other missionaries were trying to drive a demon out of. The demon had such a strong possession of the woman, that it could physical move the missionaries away from the woman's body by force.

I'm not sharing these stories to scare you; I'm telling you these stories to expose you to the reality of the spiritual realm. We live in a world of both good and evil powers, from God and satan accordingly.

In America we tend to purposely ignore the spiritual realm. We water down spirituality to the point that the spiritual world and the physical world are completely separate in our culture. It's even to the point where spirituality has become almost invisible to society. This is uncommon in many other cultures, like the Thai culture I described above. Most cultures integrate religion into their work, family, relationships and other hobbies. In America we have freedom of religion, yet children are not allowed to pray in schools and church is viewed as a building instead of a lifestyle.

What if we were to live as the body of Christ as the early church did? Acts 2:42-47 provides a beautiful model for meshing the spiritual realm with the physical realm.

"They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

What I love about this is that the early Christians met every day together to worship the Lord, and they shared their belongings with one another. They lived life in true COMMUNITY.

So what does this have to do with facing the evil  powers of the spiritual realm? Because the early Christians were daily soaking in the Word, praying, and affirming each other in their identity in Christ, they were able to go out and make disciples of every nation. Abiding translates into fruit. As John 15:5 puts it, “I (Christ) am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing."

I'm learning how to abide. In fact, I have been for almost an entire year now. One year ago now, the Lord taught me what community is. He brought in five people who would become my second family. Through sharing our testimonies and weaknesses with other, we were able to pray for each other and build each other up in Christ. Each of us overcame something great during this season, and I know we each wouldn't have been able to overcome it if it weren't for the community that was in place.

But now is a different season. I still have my second family, but we aren't as tight-knit as we once were.  School, jobs and other commitments have inched us slowly away from each other.

Honestly, it's been a difficult thing for me to grasp. I love each one of my second family members dearly, and spending time with them all together is my favorite thing in the world. The Lord taught me so much through them, and He still is.

But this time He's teaching me to let go. He's teaching me that I can't always depend on others to build my faith. Yes, community is vital, but there are seasons that come when we walk through deserts and we will need to know how to stand alone. Just like Jesus' 40-day stay in the desert where he encountered temptation from satan.

That's what Thailand is for me this summer. A desert. I will be jumping on a plane and flying over the ocean to a place I've never been before. Alone. Yes, I will have social media and email to communicate with others, but I won't have my second family, my church family, my other friends or my biological family there with me. I will be working with people I've never met before in a spiritual dark country. That is why the importance of ABIDING is so crucial to establish in my life now.

I think Ephesians 6:10-18 is the backbone for our faith as Christians, and includes the discipline of abiding. The famous passage lists the armor of God, including: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit, and prayer in the Spirit. It is through these weapons that the evil spiritual forces are destroyed.

This summer I will be on the front lines of a battle. The enemy will be ready to attack whenever He gets the chance. If I am not rooted in the Word and prayer, and if I don't put on my spiritual armor every morning when I wake up, then I will stumble and fall.

Because the truth is that the enemy knows our weak points. He knows exactly where to hit us, which is why it's so important to put on EVERY piece of spiritual armor (not just a select few). If we aren't prepared, then the enemy will have his way.

Let us learn how to abide now, in the place of abundance. Because when the desert comes, then we will know how to stand.

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"Even when I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4)