We are now deep into vacation season and many valley residents are heading to the beach for some fun in the sun. It’s a great place to relax and recharge!
Many go to the Outer Banks and the ocean floor just offshore there is known as the graveyard of the Atlantic for on it lay an estimated 5,000 ships that ran into rocks which sunk them, their cargoes and their crews. Thousands of lives were lost at the bottom of the sea because they couldn’t see the hazards.
Because the coastline was so dangerous, 5 lighthouses were built from Corolla to Ocracoke shining in the darkest nights warning sailors of the perils. Although most ships are now guided electronically, the lighthouses still remind us of the desperate need for light and what happens when there is none.
We live in the graveyard of the Shenandoah Valley for all around us friends, family, and coworkers are running aground on sin. Pornography, promiscuity, greed, bitterness, false gods of popularity and drugs, and more are sinking many who are dying without Jesus. But Christians have the light! We must shine Jesus and share His good news of forgiveness and new life. Our words, deeds, and entire lives need to be living, walking, talking lighthouses for Him!
Jesus told us not to put our lights under bushels but up on stands. The taller the stand, the further it shines. That’s why lighthouses are tall! It would contradict the whole purpose of a lighthouse to put the light deep inside its base. Do we put Jesus on top Sunday morning and then go to work Monday and stuff Him down inside? We may be ashamed of Jesus depending on the crowd we’re with, but Jesus said if anyone is ashamed of Him and His words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when He returns. (Mark 8:38) Don’t be that guy! Shine His light! Someone needs it, even if you don’t think so. If you know Jesus, you have the light that can keep people from wrecking their lives and their eternities.
A French scientist named Augustin-Jean Fresnel built a lens that magnified light enabling lighthouses to shine further and brighter than ever before. Because of its effectiveness, the Fresnel lens became known as the invention that saved a million ships. Is that not our calling; to save a million souls? Are we not to tell everyone about Jesus? Believers and churches should constantly be designing methods to shine Jesus’ light brighter and farther.
We must shine Jesus’ light that others may glorify not us, but our Heavenly Father. Although most lighthouses are beautifully painted, they weren’t built to look pretty or glorify themselves. They were built to shine. And so were we!
Eventually lighthouses were erected all over the world and 18,600 of them still stand reminding Christians to shine Jesus’ light wherever we may be for it is needed in all places! Are your home, workplace, school, and community brighter places because you’re in them? The old song says, “Brighten the corner where you are.” America is dark and getting darker and the whole nation needs Christians to be lighthouses. Turn up your lumens! The brightest lighthouse today is in France. It has 500 million candlepower or 6.3 billion lumens and can be seen 37 miles away. Oh, to be a lighthouse like that for Jesus!
Lighthouses never know how many ships they save, they just shine, and only in heaven will we learn how many people we helped. Some will ignore the light, some will even run from it, but our calling is to shine anyway. If you are not full of Jesus’ spiritual light, come to Him today and connect to the ultimate Source. And if you are connected, ask Him to make you a walking talking lighthouse and to increase your luminosity to light your world for Him! Blessings, George