Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Your Very Own Lighthouse - #4158

Wednesday, December 18, 2002

So how would you like to have your very own lighthouse? The United States Government is actually giving them away! Today, global positioning and radar, of course, have made America's charming old lighthouses largely irrelevant. Rather than sell the structures, the government has decided to give them away. Six were given away last summer to non-profit groups and local governments who agreed to maintain them. If you've ever seen one of America's great lighthouses, you know how impressive they are - and why so many people are responding to the offer. One inquirer explained the attraction of a lighthouse. She said, "It's the idea of someone watching over you, bringing you safely home, that captures the imagination of many people."

I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about "Your Very Own Lighthouse."

For a long time, Jesus has been asking people to assume the responsibility for a lighthouse. Not to have a lighthouse, but to be a lighthouse. Why? To bring lost people around them safely home. So how are you doing with your lighthouse on the stretch of shore that He's assigned to you?

His command is familiar, but all too often neglected. It's in Matthew 5:14-16 , our word for today from the Word of God. Jesus says, "You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden (just like a lighthouse on the shore). Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven."

Obviously, Jesus leaves no room for the "cop out" of being a secret Christian. "Everyone in the house," it says, should know about and see the light shining from you. Your life has been planted in the middle of the people you work with, or go to school with, or live near, or recreate with - so they would be able to see Jesus. That means you have to show them Jesus by treating them as Jesus would treat them, loving them in practical ways as Jesus loved people. Of course, you first have to be involved with the lives of lost people, not just with people who've already reached the harbor.

You're Jesus' lighthouse for them when you are a "go to" person for the folks around you - when you are there for their hurting times, their unloveable times, their crisis times. You're His light when you listen to your lost neighbors and friends, when you pray with them about their problems, when you show them a Jesus-difference in your life that would be meaningful to them - like joy in a negative place, peace instead of anger, servanthood in the middle of selfishness. But they'll never guess Jesus died for them just by seeing what a nice person you are. You have to tell them about the Man who gave His life for them, not just show them.

The government says that many of America's lighthouses were built after shipwrecks that could have been prevented - if only there had been a light to warn those ships away from the rocks and to point them to safety. How many lives - just like the folks you know - have gone into eternity with no hope of heaven because some follower of Jesus failed to be their lighthouse. Please - don't let that be you. God gave you to them so you could take some of them to heaven with you. He put you in their lives to "bring them safely home."

SOURCE: "Own a Part of Our History," Kathryn Wallace, Parade Magazine, September 29, 2002, pp. 4, 5.