Shine Like Stars (2): Courage

Light is meant to shine into darkness. But for that reason light is fundamentally confrontational. It disrupts the darkness and exposes what didn't want to be seen. It wasn't without reason that Jesus warned against putting one's light under a basket (5:15). To deliberately attract attention requires courage.

Courage is faithfulness under pressure. It is the deliberate practice of godliness when conformity would be safer. We will increasingly need the courage to say and do unpopular things. It wasn't long ago when it didn't take much courage to profess, and outwardly practice, the Christian faith. In Christian America the Bible's call to "be strong and very courageous" almost rang of melodrama. No longer. Now the pressure to conform to the spirit of the age is strong.

In fact if we don't practice courage we too will end up crooked and twisted. "People who are crooked are 'morally warped.' They cannot be trusted. They have arrived at this terrible condition by having turned and twisted themselves in different directions, but always away from the straight path pointed out by the law of God." It is possible for our lamps to go out. But we can be courageous because God is working in us (13).