Celebrate

1Peter 2:9.  You are a chosen people....I have called you out of darkness into my light ...
This morning during worship, I had a vision. I saw what looked like a birthday cake with one lite candle. It appeared to be sitting in darkness...in my simple mind I thought..oh yes we are here to celebrate the goodness of Jesus Christ and what he has done for us...I looked around and in the congregation, I saw one hand lifted up..instantly, I knew it, the candle in the vision represented  we, his people. in a few seconds, the one candle in the vision changed.. slowly the one candle turned into two and then four and then many.
As the single candle turned into many, the darkness that surrounded the cake, became so light, that it was hard to see the cake. Then I heard these words...
  "I WANT To CELEBRATE My PEOPLE."
As old as I am, it still amazes me that Gods people are often on the same wavelength... after this vision, the pastor came up and started taking...his message was on the grace and mercy of the sinner. Nothing new about that. This message in one form or another was probably being preached in many churches of today. But at the end of his talk, he quoted from a book about the life of a well known political man and hymn writer of his time. His mother raised him to believe but she died when he was young.Many horrific things followed him thereafter that caused him to lash out and cause others just as much abuse...as he felt God had brought to him. He lived his life  in utter darkness and evil....until he saw the light...once he met the mercy and grace of Jesus, his life was changed.
The fact that we are sinners is as old as Adam. In fact, most of us are aware that the patriarchs of the Bible all had to plow forward through their evil impulses and even Paul, was a killer of Christians. But...he saw the light.
We live in a dark time and we see evil all around us...but we have come to bring the light to a dark world...because we have lived in the midst of darkness and by the grace of God ,have seen the light.
We have all come from a place of sin. But the Lord sees our frame. He wants to celebrate the fact that we do not give up but keep walking in his light to bring others into the kingdom.
Jesus, having walked this earth during a terrible time of racism, poverty, government unrest and evil darkness at every turn, knows our road is hard ... but he celebrates that we are a chosen people who lock arms with each other and thus one light turns into much light... he is the light of the world in us.