“Arise, shine for your light has come and the glory of the Lord shines upon you!”

Our most creative, abundant God who loves us immeasurably said “I came that you might have life and life more abundantly.” I feel in my heart it’s a time, a call for a new awakening . A new level. We’ve been dwelling in the shadows of burial and death for too long.  I think it might be time to shed our grave clothes and arise. 

I learned more about a vision of abundance and how it could be displayed on earth after entering the business world than I did in the church.  It’s quite possible the problem was with my own interpretation.  Maybe it was how it was taught, heavy on humility and suffering.  Those are not wrong concepts, I should point out.   I mean, Sacrifice and suffering can definitely be a part of life, on some or maybe even many levels.

But maybe we forgot to circle back around to the abundant part. And what it might mean to fully live out your purpose.  To be blessed, to be a blessing to other.  There might be more talk about the Abundance and provision and beauty that is available to us. After all,  Jesus did say, “Life More Abundantly!!“

In church,  I learned a lot of incredible things about the love of God and His character.  But I learned more theory about it than what it might actually look like on earth for every day people. What would it look like to live here and now without limits.  It was when I began to work in business and personal development that I learned the difference between a lack mindset and an abundance mindset.
As in, there are no limitations on your life except the ones that you put there.

We limit our thoughts of greatness -and wealth and making a difference and abundance- because we doubt or fear or just plain don’t realize that it is available to us.

Don’t get me wrong.  There is beauty in brokenness.  There’s a work of the cross in our lives.  There’s a dying to ourselves and taking up our cross and following him.  But Jesus also said, “My yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  

If you think abundance is only mean for the business world but not for anyone else, then you are mistaken. Why all of the focus on the struggle or the sin or darkness? This kind of focus often keeps us trapped, under what we perceive as the cross.  
As opposed to rising above it all, even the challenges of the world, the way God intended.    

I ask this question: Did Jesus not die already? Did he not take our sin and suffering and pain? Why can’t we then live like it yet?  
Because we have held on to it as if it is our cross to bear.  

The working out of our salvation.  But maybe that’s not what Paul was really talking about.  

Maybe God wants us to work out our salvation from the place beyond the cross.  Beyond the grave.  The place where Jesus actually left off.   
With the Holy Spirit having defeated death and sin and darkness already.  Having ascended to heaven, His work finished, completed.   

Not that we won’t have trouble. We will. We do.  But why do we cling to trouble like it’s our job  when that was Jesus’ job all along.
 One that He completed.   
 
We are no longer supposed to be slaves to anything, let alone fear.  We are children of God.  “He whom the son sets free is free indeed.”  If the power of the One who raised Jesus from the dead lives in me, I no longer live but Christ lives in me.  

What maybe we’ve been misinterpreting this, too.  We’ve taken it as self-flagellation.  Die to self. Die to flesh. Be safe. Be submissive. Be careful. Be good. Don’t be big.  Big is selfish.  

Maybe it’s not.  Maybe “I no longer live” means my worry, my doubt, my fears.     

But CHRIST lives in me.

Maybe it’s time for  the resurrection power of Jesus.  Not I who lives, small and shy and afraid.  But Christ who lives in me.  Boldly, shining like stars in the heavens, loving and gracious, for the whole earth to see. 

We’ve been playing small, church. In our backyards, debating with the flashlights, hidden inside our cloaks of righteousness,  limitations, lacks, and fears of getting it wrong.  Maybe it wasn’t about taking up a cloak to cover ourselves and live in humility.   Or maybe it was before.  
But maybe it’s not time for that anymore.  

Maybe now is time for a coat check. To leave behind all of the things that have held us back.  Maybe it’s time to let go of what has limited us, and realize, not only do we have the permission to shine, but also now, the mandate.

Maybe now is the express, inspired time TO play BIG.   

Because I no longer live, But Christ lives in me.  

Instead  of debating the inches and measures of rightness and righteousness maybe we need to allow ourselves to push our feet off the ground and really fly!

What is bigger and bolder than Love from heaven come to earth, shattering the spiritual realm,  upturning religious piety and status quo and rule following that wants to ensure our own security. Love that comes in order to bring true freedom and peace.

Among those promises was your destiny. 

I don’t know who shines brighter than the sun?? Imagine imagine if every one of us stopped being polite and worrying and holding back and fear of getting it wrong   Or better yet, stopped talking with one another and debating about what it means to get it right.      

Imagine if we shed our self limitation and unshackled, allowed ourselves to shine the way God wanted us to all along   

Boldly. Brightly. Fully.   

What could ever stop that kind of love, what could dim down this light? Only ourselves with our fears or our doubts.    “The darkness will be as light to you, your brightness like the noon day sun.”

 What if we stopped talking about how dark it was getting and we set aside those sins that so easily beset us (self-righteousness, envy, doubt, fear) and we allowed the light of Christ really shine through us?  What would that look like? How would the world shine then?

“Arise shine for your light has come.”   

Those days of forgetting and waiting are passing.  Have past. 

MY LOVE WILL GIVE YOU STRENGTH.  HIS POWER IS MADE PERFECT IN WEAKNESS.

NOW love.  Jesus loved by the well, in the river, in the shade of a tree, in the byways, on the hills, in the boats and houses and walkways,  afternoon tables and gatherings.   He forwent tradition and inviting all to his banquet.    Invitations to all.  Welcome all,  you are loved.  Love that is limitless.  And because it is, so are you.    

Sing and fill this earth with the truth of His love! Do not be shy.  Sing and speak of the truth that IS LOVE.  Love that breaks chains, overturns tables, disrupts the status quo.  Do not be silent or sit in fear.  

“Arise shine for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD rises upon you. See, darkness covers the earth and thick darkness is over the peoples, but the LORD rises upon you and his glory appears over you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.​​​​​​​“

It’s time to let the Love that is Jesus shine brighter, friends. Feel that light, know that light, Be that light, shine that light.   The world needs it now more than ever in our lifetime.