Reflecting the Light - It All Comes Down to Proximity
The Moon does not make its own light. Moonlight is actually reflected sunlight. We always see the same face of the Moon from Earth - the “lunar nearside.” Each month, as day and night sweep across the lunar nearside, the sunlit part of our view takes on a series of familiar shapes: crescent, half-moon, full, and more.
According to NASA:
Overall, only about one-tenth of the sunlight that hits the Moon is reflected back into space. This ration of reflected light is called albedo. For comparison, our watery planet bounces about three-tenths of incoming rays back into space. Venus has an even higher albedo than Earth, reflecting half of the sunlight that reaches it. Yet, the Moon outshines Venus in our sky.
Why? It is all comes down to proximity. The Moon is far closer to us than Venus so the Moonlight - the reflection of the Sun’s light - appears brilliant to us.
John the Witness, via his devotion to Jesus, was able to show the way to the Light because of his proximity both to the Light and to those to whom he witnessed. Our proximity to the Light and others affords us the same opportunity to likewise direct others to Light of Jesus.
Jesus is the Light (uppercase "L"). Jesus' disciples (us!) are the light (lowercase "l") called to reflect the Son. As we draw closer to Him, and then and draw closer to those to whom we would share that Light, we are able to do just that. His Light will shine brilliantly to all those who are in darkness.
It all comes down to proximity.
"He [John] was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light" (John 1:8).
Feeding on the Word of God
A practical illustration of feeding on the word of God:
Make a Bible out of fondant icing and marzipan. Try to make it look like your own Bible. I have a small brown leather-look Bible, so I used a block of marzipan and made the cover out of chocolate fondant icing. I had a whole pile of Bibles - illustrating the many types available to suit each person and their need. the fondant one was on the top of the pile and the congregation assumed it was a real Bible.
I then explained the importance of reading the Bible, as important as feeding ourselves every day. I picked the fondant bible up and emphasized how good the Bible is - kind of delicious, before taking a large bite out of it - to the sound of gasps and then laughs.
It really got the point home. A word of advice though - you need to take a break from speaking after biting the Bible, although the delay in returning to speaking gave the congregation time to take it in...
The Bible is satisfying, it feeds our souls. We need a regular diet of it - not an occasional snack.
"How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!" (Psalm 119:103).
Eating Daily
Me and my wife's favorite food in the world is any Chinese buffet that we can belly up to, or any other buffet for that matter ... Golden corral, Pizza Hut. We love buffets!
Wouldn't it be great if you could go to a buffet and eat enough to last you all week? Would that not just be wonderful? You could go in and pay the price of the buffet, just pile it on that plate and be done with eating for a whole week!
But we know it doesn't work that way. No matter how much you eat off of that buffet, the next day you're going to be hungry and you need to eat again.
Yet isn't this how we approach our need for spiritual sustenance? We feed our soul one day and then starve it for six, as though what happens on Sunday is enough to last us all week.
"This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever" (John 6:58).
"And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts" (Acts 2:46, ESV).