As a born-again child of God, Christ Jesus dwells in you through the Holy Spirit. The Light of the world is inside you. The light source that lightens every being that’s in the heavens and on earth has come inside you. And He has told you to let Him shine through you. He said you should let your light shine so brightly that men would see it and glorify our heavenly Father.
When He said, ‘your light’, He doesn’t mean the light you create or produce by yourself, He means the Light, His Light, or to let Him who is the light of the world shine through you. Therefore yield to the Light within and let Him shine through, to the world around you.
Shine as Lights in the World
The Holy Spirit through Apostle Peter gave us a clear exhortation similar to this in his Epistle to guide us as we walk in the midst of the unbelieving world. Here’s the message as translated in the NIV Bible:
“Dear friends, I urge you, as foreigners and exiles, to abstain from sinful desires which wage war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right. For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorant talk of foolish people. Live as free people, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as God’s slaves. Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor.” (2 Pet 2:11-17).
That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;” Php 2:15
King James translation, renders the 16th verse of the passage from the Epistle of Peter above as saying—“As free, not using your liberty in Christ as a cloke of maliciousness” or a cover-up for habitually sinning. Yes, you are free! Christ has set you free from the Law, but don’t use your liberty as a license to sin, or live in lawlessness and lasciviousness; for we have not so learnt of Christ.
It’s true, we are not justified by works but by our faith in Jesus Christ. However, though we live as those who are not under the Mosaic Law, we should not live as those without the Law of God, but be under the Law to Christ (1 Cor 9:21).
Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid.
For if I build again the things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless, I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Gal 2:16-20).
Children of Light
The Apostle, therefore, admonishes us to consider ourselves as dead, as far as sin is concerned, but alive and in fellowship with God through the Lord Christ Jesus. Sin must no longer rule in our bodies, and we should no longer live like the carnal man.
For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;) Proving what is acceptable unto the Lord. And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them. (Eph 5:8-11).
In the words of the prophet Malachi in the 4th Chapter of his Book, our Lord Jesus is the ‘Sun of Righteousness”:
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; Jesus Christ is God’s Sun, the Bright Morning Star, the DayStar from on high that visited us.
He is that Light that God set in the firmament of the heavens to rule the Day; He is the Light of life, the Source of light for all light-bearers. On the fourth day, God said, “Let there be lights.”
Notice He said “lights”, not “light.” God set many lights in the heavens on Day 4 of creation but only one Light-Source, the Sun. The others, the moon, and the innumerable stars are reflectors of the light from the Sun. He bore record of Himself in the gospel of John saying, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. He is the Light of Life. Just as in the natural realm, all life depends on the sun, so it is in the spiritual; all life depends on Christ Jesus the Son of God and the Sun of Righteousness. He is the Light of the world.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the embodiment of light, the Light of God, the Light that came down to us here on earth, the Light that sprang up in the midst of darkness and the darkness could not overpower it. In His ascended state, as the SUN, He shines His light into all the other “heavenly bodies” who are the members of His Body, and these in turn reflect His light to lighten the earth. No wonder He said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world” (Joh 9:5). And when He was about to leave the world, He turned to us, “members of His Body” or the “heavenly bodies” and said
“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Mat5:14-16).
The night is far spent; the day is at hand. Let us, therefore, cast off all the works of darkness and put on the armor of light, for we are children of Light.
“Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying.
But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof” (Rom 13:13,14). “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness.
Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night; and they that be drunken are drunken in the night.
But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation. For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ, “(1The 5:5-9).