Live with God’s brightness
We are still alive just as the early namesakes of the Vanderbilt legacy once were. As a result, we can be out and about our world having an impact. What do we do with our resources, our attitude, our smile, our approachability? There is a passage in the New Testament which talks about the way we live our lives. It is below:
58 Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. (I Corinthians 15:58–ESV)
Note that this verse does not define labor. We are to abound in God’s work where we are with what we are directed to do in our lives. A life lived this way is not in vain. It is not futile, but full, and grows up into an eternal legacy. That way of living shines now and forever, that is, it is part of God’s living brightness.
More of that metaphor
24 By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, 25 and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. 26 They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. (Revelation 21:24-26–ESV)
The 23rd verse took us from the literal at its beginning to the figurative at its end. The 24th carries on the metaphor of light. The nations and the kings of the earth will manage their political systems with God’s style. The manner of the Lamb will be the ways and the means of the world.
I mentioned a word that King David penned a few paragraphs above. Here is the verse:
105 Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (Psalm 119:105–ESV)
That was King David of old before his death and before going to heaven. If he considered and in some manner lived God’s word as his lamp for living this life imagine how the kings of the eternal world will live.
More of the living glory
The lamp of the Lamb was behind the living glory of the New Jerusalem. In the same manner, when the kings of the earth and the nations they rule live from their renewed, entirely sanctified spirits glory will be the result. There will be glory in the nations, and they will bring that glory to God in what essentially will be living worship.
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