2 Corinthians 4:4-6 & 15 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” Today's episode is about how God is calling us to share His light with others. It also talks about how we are messenger's of God and we are spreading Jesus' message, not our own message. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Share God’s Light With Others
2 Corinthians 4:4-6 & 15 “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we preach is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.”
The first line in this verse is one of those ones I wanted to skip over because I didn’t understand it. Do you ever do that? You read something and you don’t quite understand what it is saying, but you move on because you figure it’s not that important. I am so grateful I am doing this podcast and I am grateful to you for listening to it, truly grateful. One of the reasons I am grateful to be doing this podcast is because it is forcing me to examine the scripture a lot more closely. I am stopping to take a closer look at verses I don’t understand instead of just passing it by. Honestly, it is a lot easier than I thought to find out the meaning of scriptures we don’t understand. All I do is put the words, “meaning of scripture 2 Corinthians 4:4” for instance in the search bar and usually get an explanation. Today I didn’t even need an explanation, I just needed to read the verse in one of the other translations of the Bible. Reading the same passage in various translations is also a great way to gain a greater understanding. The message translation and the New Living Translation tend to put the Bible verse in terms more commonly used today. If I don’t understand a verse I usually start by reading it in the Message translation of the Bible and it usually helps. The website I use for bible verses most often is www.biblegateway.com On this website you can look verses up in any of the many translations pretty easily. There is also a way to list the verse in all the english translations so you can compare them. I really like it.
Now, back to the verse. When I read this verse I read, “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.” What I heard in my head was that God has blinded the minds of the unbelievers and so I didn’t understand why God would do that. I always struggle understanding the lines in the bible which say, “God’s words hardened their hearts.” So I thought this was a similar statement and I was going to skip over it. However, luckily I committed to really understanding the verses and being able to explain them to you. So, I looked up the meaning of this verse and realized I missed a few key words in this first line. It doesn’t say “God has blinded the minds of unbelievers.” It says, “The god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers.” Do you know who the God of this world is? Satan. Remember when Pilate asked Jesus if He was a King and Jesus said, “I am a king but my kingdom is not of this world.” The verse above is saying Satan has blinded the minds of unbelievers. This makes so much more sense. Of course Satan is blinding the minds of those who don’t believe. If they could see the light of the gospel, truly see it, there is no way they would remain unbelievers.
The verse is talking about the light of the Gospel being the glory of Jesus, who is the image of God. It talks about how we are not preaching about ourselves but we are preaching about Jesus and how we are servants for Jesus’ sake. We are not preaching our message we are messengers for Jesus and we are passing along His message. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ. God filled us up with the light of the knowledge of God’s glory and it is our job to share that light with others. Week after week in prayer group God is asking us to share His light. He is asking us to take His love and pass it on to others. He is asking us to take His forgiveness and to pass it on to others. God gives us so much and He is not giving us everything so we can keep it for ourselves. He wants us to spread His love and His light to everyone we meet.
The next line says, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” I love the word grace. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary online, Grace is unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification. Grace is unmerited divine assistance. God gives us assistance even though we don’t deserve it, even though we haven’t done anything extraordinary. He gives us grace even if we don’t ask for it. The verse says His grace is reaching more and more people so that may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. I know I for one am so grateful for the grace God is showering upon us. I think between the light of knowledge God is filling us up with and the grace He is giving us, it is hard not to share His light with others. It is hard not to be grateful and to give Glory to God. This verse is a great reminder to us that we need to be sharing His light with others. We should not be proclaiming our story, we should be proclaiming the story of Jesus and talking about God’s Glory. We are messengers passing along the stories of Jesus and how amazing His is. When we share the light of knowledge we can hopefully bring non believers into that light and bring them out of the darkness that Satan has cast over them. The Glory of God is brighter than any darkness from the devil.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we love you and we thank you for the light of knowledge you have filled us with. We ask you to help us share that light with all we meet. We are so grateful for you glory and your grace. Help us spread your glory to others Lord. You are so powerful. You are our aide and rescue us from the enemy. You draw us out of deep waters. We are so grateful and we ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to sharing a witness with you tomorrow. Have a blessed day!