Shine like stars!

I have to admit that this is one of those verses in the bible that really inspires me. I love the picture that Paul paints in these verses about how we should be responding to God’s Grace. Because God has saved us, regardless of how good or bad we have been, our response should be to live different lives. Lives that act as beacons to others. Lives that shine out amongst the darkness of the rest of the sky.

Get the study here

This week in you network bible study we will be looking at how we should be acting as a witness for others. You might also want to look up a great song on this by Matt Redman called Shine. It is on his most recent album ‘Beautiful News’.

Al Gordon is the co-leader of Worship Central, which is part of the Alpha organisation. In the Worship Central blog for Sept he wrote a bit about this . . . .

Shine Like Stars 13SEP08
Looking around the church at the moment, I see signs of incredible creativity, explosions of art and wonder, but at the same time we often short-change ourselves. We lose out on the vast inheritance we have as children of the Creator.
If it follows that God is the true source of all creativity, the ultimate dreamer , and that we are not just made in the image of our Creator, but also adopted through Christ into his family, reflecting the nature of our Father, then it follows that we should burn with bright, Spirit-fuelled creativity. We should be exploding with art, bringing beauty and calling order out of chaos.
What’s holding us back? I wonder if, on the one hand, we hide ourselves in mediocrity, afraid to share our ideas for fear people will shoot them down. But the opposite is true:
“Whereas material goods are diminished by sharing, the spiritual treasuries of knowledge and beauty, of poetry, music and the rest, by being shared are not diminished but increased.” [Kathleen Raine, The Land Unknown]
We’re called to create in community: just as God involved Adam in the first creation, we who are in Christ, the second Adam, are called to be involved in the new creation: remaking, rethinking and renewing the world around us. We need to encourage a culture that births creativity and does not settle for the status quo.
The second thing that often holds us back is pride. Ego chokes true, God-anointed creativity and leaves us with a hollow shell of what could have been. I love the famous exhortation to humility that US President Ronald Regan had mounted on his desk in the White House: ‘There’s no limit to what you can achieve as long as you don’t mind who gets the credit’.
Let’s push for a cultural shift in our churches towards a season of dangerous, risky, brave creativity, while striving to be clothed in real humility. Let’s shine like stars in the universe as we hold out the word of life. [Phil 2:15]

From Al Gordon’s blog on Worship Central

Have a good week!

Tim