Have you ever stared up at the moon in the sky at night and been captivated by the soft soothing glow? Recently I was looking up at the night sky enjoying the cool night air and I caught a glimpse of the moon.

As I was enjoying the peaceful portrait painted in the sky, it reminded me of a spiritual truth. We are called to be the light of Christ, and when many preachers speak on this topic, they make a comparison with the Sun, but in-fact it is the Moon which we are best identified with, while the Sun is a picture of Christ, we are the Moon.

You see the Moon itself has no light; it only shines as the Sunlight is reflected off of it. Likewise we ourselves can only shine when the light of Christ Jesus reflects and radiates from us. Have you ever heard the phrase “Be the light of Christ” or “Shine for Him” and wondered what that means and also how you are supposed to actually accomplish that?

Many preachers today use good sounding words and taglines without any explanation or instruction of how we are to succeed in doing it.

Well, please allow me to make it clear so we all can understand this and move forward in our spiritual lives:

In order to truly be the light of Christ and to shine for Him so that His light is seen by all who come into contact with us. We must fill ourselves with him. Now to avoid any misunderstanding I am going to explain this further using another illustration.

I like to play Chess, it’s a social game that I really enjoy. However I was not very good at first. I wanted to get better but when I as growing u there wee not many opportunities to play – There was no internet back then if you can believe that, and none of my family played the game.

Recently however I have had a desire to improve my Chess skill, but playing wasn’t enough… I knew that I had to immerse myself as much a possible into Chess to really improve. That meant not only playing games, but also studying moves and strategies, observing other matches, reading about theories, and absorbing everything I could about it… to get inside of the game and make it a part of me.

This is what we must do with Christ; we must spend time with Him, get to know Him, learn all of the promises and blessings given to us by Christ, we must absorb Him into our lives and make Him a part of us.

This is what so many of us are missing these days, we memorize a few scriptures (head knowledge) and go to church; but it never really gets inside of us and becomes a true part of us. In order to have Christ effective n our lives, He must be in our lives!

In order to truly stay connected to our Vine we must first truly be a branch.

Learn about Him and His works; make it a part of your life, and you will be so full of His Light that shining for Him will be automatic, and wonderful to behold by all.