3.288 Arise, Shine

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

I just witnessed a car accident and it's amazing the lens of reading Isaiah puts on regular everyday occurrences. Let me elaborate. As we're reading Isaiah 58 through 66, much of this text of Isaiah is focused on the last days.

When the Lord comes again and when Israel again is reunited with its Savior. Inside of it, we get a lot of context of opportunities, I would say calls to action for us as Israel to begin to prepare the day of the Lord. This time, let me frame the story before we get to our verse for today.

I was driving home from work and had stopped at a light. There were two cars in front of me. When coming my direction on the other side of the road, through a red light, came a van.

No stopping at all, straight through the red light. And a car coming across the intersection from the other direction hit it straight in the front end of the car. Both of them spinning.

One of them spinning almost into us, sitting there at the light, at the red light. In that moment, I immediately wondered, what do I do? That's the first thing I want you to think about.

Then a man behind me immediately pulled over into a parking lot and ran over to one car. At which point I pulled over next to his car and I ran over to the van. The two people in front of me drove around the cars and went on with their day.

As I went over to the van, I noticed the van had a label for a retirement center. This van was carrying retirees, people in rest homes. All of the airbags had deployed and so I couldn't see inside the car very well.

I ran over to the driver's side and reached through the curtain and asked if he was okay. I saw an older lady, a grandmotherly-age lady, in the passenger seat. She was dazed.

And then a man in the back. I asked if anyone was bleeding. I asked if everyone was breathing and then began the process there of trying to help both those that had been in the accident.

A story of a young man who was driving down the road. Second, he was a teenager as well. He pulled up in a different car right behind the other teen.

He rolled down his window and he said, 'Hey man, you can't park there.' And then he laughed hysterically as he drove around the corner, looking at the wreckage in the road. Now inside of this quick story here, there's several characters. I'm one of them.

And there was a moment of hesitation where I tried to debate what I'm supposed to do in this wreck. All of these different circumstances and choices that are all around us. Isaiah chapter 60, verse 1 (and I would include verse 2; you're going to see both sides of the coin, but I just give verse 1 for us today): Arise, shine, for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.

My friends, we have choices all around us, all the time. Hopefully, not regularly choices of whether to render aid from a car accident or not. But inside of those choices, we have a chance—you know I'm a fan of this—we have a chance to either shine our light or to cast darkness.

Some of the people around me chose that day, today actually, to shine light. Others chose to simply move on in darkness or maybe even cast darkness around the scenario as they laughed at those that had been in the wreck. My friends, I hope that you and I take an opportunity every day in all of our choices to see how we can arise, shine, and ultimately cast our light to those around us.

That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.