A Must Read

A Must Read

Friday, June 10, 2016
Jeff Lampl

“Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may 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--in order that I may boast on the day of Christ that I did not run or labor for nothing”                      Philippians 2:14-16 (NIV)

In Thursday’s blog post Megann Graf commented on this verse . . .

What she wrote brought me to tears. I thought her comments (http://pastorsreflections.blogspot.com ) were so profound that I hope you re-read them, or if you deleted them without reading that will do so now, or read more.....     

Here’s the bulk of what Megann wrote:

“As I was looking for an image to use for the blog today, I searched under just the exact quote you see above, because that’s the part of the scripture I remember the most.  But, I found it interesting, and challenging, as I raise an almost 11 year old daughter, to think of how many times I often leave out the beginning and end of the verse when I encourage her.   I often tell her “shine your light” instead of “good luck,” and lots of people tell her to “shine her light,” but rarely does she hear the part about holding out the word of life.  To be honest, even as a grown up, I don’t hear or think that very often either.  We are bombarded with advertisements about how “we’re worth it” or mantras that tell us “shine like the universe is yours,” and they start to distort the truth and water down our purpose.

Imagine a lake on a warm summer night and think about stars shining over that lake.  It’s a beautiful picture.  It looks pretty.  But, what if what we’re not seeing someone in that lake who needs help.  They need a hand to get out of that lake.  They’re drowning.  Sometimes, we can easily get caught up in the “shining” part and miss the most important words- that we shine “AS WE HOLD OUT THE WORD OF LIFE.”  It’s happening simultaneously.  There’s really no shining without holding out the word of life, the gospel, with it, and we are surrounded by people who need that truth.  We are surrounded by people who are hurting, overwhelmed, and burdened.  We are surrounded by people who are selfish, prideful and arrogant.  And sometimes, we are those people.  We need to hold on to the gospel ourselves, know it, believe it, work through it, but as we are in the midst of that we also need to share the gospel.  I’m not sure we will ever get to the point where we feel like we “get it” completely.  So, we can’t wait until we do to share it with others. 

“As we hold out the Word of Life”

My very first thought was, I wish I could have a parenting “do over”.  What a wonderful thing it would be to create a home in which the most repeated phrase to one another wasn’t “good luck” or “have a great day” or “study hard” or whatever else we tend to say when sending one another off into our days, but rather, “hold out the Word of Life today”.

Is that not the job of every parent, to raise our children to enter the world with that as their life purpose regardless of profession, sport, or whatever?   Is that not the purpose of parenting, to create a home where the Word of Life, God in Jesus Christ, is real in all the love, working out conflict, purpose, discipline, mutual support and laughter that characterizes good families?

What a great family purpose statement: “Our family will hold out the Word of Life to one another and to the world around us”

One last thing.  The Gospel tells us that wherever we are in life, nothing is final.   It’s never too late to embark on God’s calling for each of us.