No 25

(The Candlestick)

When the Lord was on the earth He said, “Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.” John 8:12. But now that Jesus is at the right hand of God and we are in the world, aren’t we supposed to be His body? So if we are His body, we are now the light of the world. “Ye are the light of the world” Matt 5:14a. We are the light of the world as individuals and collectively as members of His body.

When Jesus gave instructions to the Apostle John in Revelation 2 and 3 to the 7 churches in Asia, He mentioned the following concerning the church in Ephesus “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.” Rev 2:4, 5. Somehow this church had been so tied up in its churchianity, that it had forgotten its raison d’être – its first love or, in other words, spreading the Gospel. In lay man’s terms, the definition of “having a candlestick removed” is that a church that no longer spreads the Gospel, Jesus simply does not use it any more for His precious work.

Our churches are the Saviour’s golden candelabra and if we are to be lights in this dark world, we must have much holy oil. Let us pray for ourselves, our ministers and our churches that we may never lack oil for the light. Truth, holiness, joy, peace, knowledge and love are all beams of the sacred light but we cannot give them forth unless in private we receive oil from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the source of our oil and the more space we allow Him in our lives, the more oil we will make available to those who are in our entourage. In other words, it is our duty to be the light of the world in bringing the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ to those who desperately need it; they may not know that they desperately need it, but nonetheless, they need it.