p. 27 | Shining Christians by O. A. K.

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 10, 1871

Shining Christians.

By O. A. K.

Christ's injunction is: “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.” Undoubtedly there is some measure of light in every true child of God. In every one who is a true believer in Jesus, there is light in proportion to his faith. The spark may be very feeble, just on the point of extinction perhaps; it is hidden under a pile of worldliness, or narrowness, or spiritual indolence; but it still glimmers. Rake open the coals, remove the ashes, and you can find that feeble spark. But this certainly is not the kind of Christian character that Christ had in view in uttering this injunction. Men will not take pains to see whether you are a Christian or not. They will not search for the feeble spark to see whether it burns, or has gone out. And, in a measure, they are right. Christ says to his followers, “Let your light so shine that men may see your good works.” You must fan the flame of your faith, love, and devotion, till it blazes up so brightly that men cannot fail to see that your religion is worth something; “that men may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven.”

There are several ways in which this light, while it does exist, may be so obscured that men cannot see it.

1. A lack of Christian courtesy sometimes obscures the light. In dealing with men, our manners are by no means unimportant. Indeed, they have a very great effect oftentimes. Religion ought to sweeten and soften the whole man. A Christian ought to be a polite man; not necessarily with the airs and graces of mere fashionable society, but certainly with genuine heart-politeness. And yet it is to be feared that sometimes the light of Christian love is hidden under the bushel of a stern, forbidding, harsh exterior; and so men are not attracted to religion, but rather repelled from it.

2. Worldliness hides very completely this Christian light. So many of those who profess themselves Christ's, seem so absorbed in the things of this earth, in its “buying, and selling, and getting gain,” that men in general cannot always tell the difference between a Christian and one who makes no claims to the name. So many who profess to have this light shining within them, seem to be just as much occupied with earthly cares, earth's ambitions, cares, jealousies, joys, sorrows, achievements, as is any one else; and so their light does not shine out for men to see their good works. Only by careful scrutiny can it be determined that the light does shine.

3. Parsimon y obscures the light. I have reference here to this failing as it concerns Christian beneficence. Men reason in this way: “Here is one who professes to be a child of God, ‘bought with a price;’ a servant of God; a steward administering those things with which he has been put in trust, and yet see how slow he is to recognize the claims of a perishing world upon him; see how little he gives to the support and diffusion of the gospel.” This is a right method of reasoning; this is sound logic. There are far too many who call it forth. And they are most certainly obscuring the light.

4. Indolence is another way in which Christian light is obscured. And it is far too common. Many a man is known as a Christian, simply because his name is on the church-roll, and he is seen from time to time at the communion-table. He is not known as a Christian because of any work that he does. He is not seen in the prayer-meeting, or the Sabbath-school. His principle seems to be to get all he can, but to do correspondingly little in the line of religious activity. He woefully obscures the light of Christian example. Men certainly see no “good works” of his portraying, and hence are not led to glorify the Father in Heaven.

5. Another thing that obscures Christian light—and it is a fundamental thing—is a low tone of piety. You may have a strong, bright flame, but so shut in that it cannot beam forth. Remove the obstructions, and the light shines. But when you have only a feeble flame you cannot have much radiance. Just here is the trouble in the case of most Christians, the flame of piety is not strong enough, and so of course, there is not much shining.

We look at such a life as that of Henry Martyn, and see that it was its devotion, its deep spirituality that made it so effective. The light burned with such intensity that the candle soon sunk into the socket, entirely consumed. But what a glorious radiance beamed from it! Its shining is not done yet. Just in the proportion that a high tone of piety makes the light shine, just in that proportion does a low tone obscure it. Hence the need of complete consecration, of entire devotion, that the light may shine brilliantly, and men “may see our good works, and glorify our Father which is in Heaven.”

Would that there were more, not simply of Christians, such as shall be saved “yet so as by fire,” but of SHINING CHRISTIANS. Shall you and I let our light shine?—O. A. K., in Am. Messenger.