Stand Out!

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

Matthew 5:14

Historians feel Jesus taught the Sermon on the Mount in the gently sloping hillsides of the northwest corner of the Sea of Galilee. When you go there you can see small towns situated on the tops and sides of the hills. These towns are not hidden even at night you can see them.

Sabine, my flirty, little cat has tortoise markings. Her black, brown, white, and orange colorings are so mixed she can totally disappear against a mottled or dark background.  We have a multi-colored chair she loves to sleep on and many times I have almost sat on her. She loves to take advantage of her ability to disappear when she does not want to do something---like come when she is called.

We live in a worldly culture of darkness and lurid sin-pox (my word). Much of society is ugly and not improving. Are my actions so like the world, if held in front of it would I disappear into its ugliness? Is my speech so like the world's coarseness that my friends and family do not know I am a Christian?

As a child of God, Jesus says I am to be different. I should not be blending into darkness. I am to be salt, to be light, and to be like a city on a hill that cannot be hidden.

Jesus, help me be different from our worldly culture. Let Your Spirit in me produce that light-filled city on the hill that cannot be hidden.

Claudia Jackson