Such a powerful little word!

Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven.

Did you catch that powerful little word at the beginning of this verse from Matthew 5:16? Let.

According to the good old Merriam-Webster Dictinary, “let” means to “give opportunity to” or “fail to prevent.”

Let that sink in for a minute. Matthew wrote to his readers that they needed to give opportunities to allow their light to shine, and, from another perspective, that they needed to fail to prevent their light from shining.

It is fairly easy to understand the idea of giving our lights an opportunity to shine, but doesn’t “fail to prevent” seem like a negative way of looking at things? It makes more sense when we think about how we let jealous thoughts in because we fail to prevent them. But what about when we’re talking about letting our light shining? How does that apply?

What struck me most was the realization that we can and often do prevent our light from shining. We literally stop the light…

…because we listen to fear.

…because we don’t think we are worthy or we have failed too much.

…because we choose being angry or jealous or hurt or a thousand other things over letting our light shine.

We have a choice. Will we shine? And, much more importantly, will we allow Jesus to shine through us?

Wait, Dawn. I thought we were talking about our lights shining. What does that have to do with Jesus?

Letting our light shine has everything to do with Jesus. Let’s look at John 8:12.

Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”

Jesus is the light. He shines, and we reflect His light into all the places we go each day. But doing so is a choice. We let our light shine so others will see and give glory to God.

Today, let’s choose to let our lights shine brightly and pray that God receives the glory.