Monday, January 09, 2006

The Holy and the Common

"they do not distinguish between the holy and the common." It was an indictment brought by the Lord through Ezekiel to the city of Jerusalem (Ezekiel 22: 26).

Yesterday, Beverly and I were talking about a trend that troubles us. We, God's people, are called to be lights -- to shine into the darkness. Yet it seems that oftentimes we are trying to convince the darkness that we are not so different from them. As if we are into darkness, too.

Now don't get me wrong. WE are not the light. We simply reflect THE LIGHT. But no darkness is found in light, either. And there should be no apology for "walking in the light." There is no gospel in calling the darkness into semi-darkness. The gospel is calling people from darkness to light. Again, we are to be a counterculture (I'm kind of on a hobby here, if you haven't guessed already).

A couple of weeks ago, Malaya was singing some Christmas song. I decided to add my percussion sounds to her song. She looked at me with a look of disgust, ran to Beverly and said, "Grammy, Grampy's spitting in a godly song." Well, I had obviously never thought of it like that, especiallly since that's not what I was doing. But that imagery has stuck with me. I don't ever want to be guilty of mixing the common with the holy. There's just no "good news" in that.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sometimes I think we are scared to point out darkness in someone because they may run from the light, so we try to show them that we to have had darkness in our past and you can come to the light that will shine on you and cover your dark past. We have to be very careful to not condon the darkness we or they have had in our lives. Our we could give the imprssion that it is okay.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we should take care that what we reflect is the light of our God rather than something comes from inside us. Interestingly enough if we walk in the light we will have fellowship with one another. Isn't walking in the light great?

Jeff said...

I remember being a child and holding my finger up and singing "this little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine..." There was also a verse about snuffing it out. Too often, I probably hide the light but I pray that I get better about letting it shine and letting people see the glory of living and walking with God.