I Am a Child of the Light
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light.” Ephesians 5:8
Do you ever make a judgment about a group of people based on the company they keep?
My high school had strict rules about its extracurriculars. If you wanted to join the drama club, you had to keep your grades up, never get suspended or skip class, and be an all-around decent human. Same thing for the cheerleading squad, the football team, debate, and the math club.
Basically, members represented the school, and needed to represent it well—or else.
When we become believers in Christ, we gain entry to a new club: The Children of God Club. People on the outside watch, wondering who we are and what it’s like to be one of us.
Sometimes, they wait for us to stumble, just to jeer. Other times, they draw closer after watching awhile, wanting to join the club, too.
People on the inside watch, also. We keep each other on the right path and hold one another accountable. We’re a team—we rise and fall together, as one body in Christ.
That’s why we must remember and heed today’s verse, from Paul’s letter to the early church in Ephesus.
This section of Scripture urges Christian believers to stand strong in their faith, to live as Jesus desired: in the way of love and truth, mercy and compassion. We must represent “Team Jesus” by avoiding all immorality, obscenity, or impurity, whether greed, sexual impropriety, or vulgar language. As Paul reminds us, “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light” (Ephesians 5:8).
As children of light, we are children of God. Our identity is wrapped up in all things good and true, right and holy. Darkness doesn’t touch us; evil runs when we approach.
And, as moths are attracted to light, others are drawn to the light of Christ shining within us. When we live as children of light, they like that light and want to be part of it.
Jessica Brodie is an award-winning journalist and a member of the Wholly Loved Ministry team. She’s also an author who currently serves as the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate, the oldest newspaper in Methodism. She is the author of More Like Jesus: A Devotional Journey (2018) and editor of Stories of Racial Awakening: Narratives on Changed Hearts and Lives of South Carolina United Methodists (2018), both from her newspaper’s Advocate Press. She also writes contemporary women’s fiction, represented by Bob Hostetler of The Steve Laube Agency. Her novel The Memory Garden won the American Christian Fiction Writers’ 2018 Genesis Contest. She has a faith blog at JessicaBrodie.com.
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Originally published Friday, 29 September 2023.
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