Are we light, or do we simply reflect it?

There are two ways to increase light. You can power light and set it on a lampstand. Then you can increase the light through mirrors set where they catch the light and reflect it out. Most talk of us being reflected light, and that’s true if we stand in proximity to Jesus so we catch His rays and mirror it out. But in this passage of Matthew, Jesus doesn’t say we are the reflection of light. He says we ARE light. How is that?

What makes light light? Power. A spark to a wick makes candle light. Oil in a lamp with a wick sparked to life creates oil lamp light. Electricity pouring into a bulb’s filament lights it up.

Even a sun has power from inside that lights it up. The moon is dead marble that reflects the light of the sun in the night sky: it’s brightness, size, and shape dependent on proximity to the sun it reflects. The sun is powered from within. As long as it’s light is powered, it shines. When power ceases, it dies, and light stops.

When we stand close to Jesus, desiring to emulate Him, He can bounce Himself off of us. But when we so greatly desire to be like Him that we begin to surrender ourselves to Him, He sparks Life in us, filling us with power that makes light. We become light as He is light.

That is what God wants from us. As we draw so near to God that we let go of our fleshly thoughts, desires, and ways, He fills us with Himself, empowering us to be as He is. As He pours Himself into and through us, He lights us up to be as He is. As Paul says, “… it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me ….” (Galatians‬ ‭2:20‬ ‭NASB)

God did not make us simply to reflect His image. He made us to bear His image as fruit from a tree. Fruit comes from within. As we get so close to God, so intimate with Him, we become one as He and Jesus are one. His essence in us produces Life’s power that bears forth the very image of God in us.

We can’t be God. Only He is the power. But we can be so filled with and fueled by Him as to be sparked to Life, abundant and full, becoming the spitting image of God, bearing forth love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Powered by Him: as He is, so also are we in His image, born from within.

As He is, so are we, by the power of God’s grace working in us. Only then will we BE LIGHT, as He says we are.