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Begin by Reading: 2 Corinthians 3:7-18
I remember as a kid I had a glow-in-the-dark nightlight. Every night, just before bedtime, I would take that small light and hold it up to a lamp. I’d give it about thirty seconds, and the nightlight would radiate in the dark for at least a few hours.
That’s radiance.
The idea of radiance is that it emits energy because of exposure to another, stronger source of energy. Of course, it has good connotations as well as bad ones. For example, the brave Japanese workers were exposed to lethal amounts of radiation when they tried to save the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
The truth is we’re all radiating from some influence. Our exposure to friends, families, jobs, the world in general will have some effect on our lives. Hang around a cynic long enough, and you’re bound to at least pick up a tenor of cynicism. Hang around someone with an outgoing and engaging personality, and suddenly you’ll find yourself more encouraging and uplifted.
Hang around Jesus long enough, and you’ll become like Him.
That’s the idea behind biblical radiance, and we find it all throughout Scripture. In Exodus 34, Moses’ skin literally radiated from spending time with God on Mount Sinai, as he received the stone tablets.
Did you catch what Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 3, as he compares Moses’ experience with ours? Here’s a brief and much less elegant summary: If we dwell on the Lord’s glory; we will radiate because we are experiencing something even more glorious and unguarded than what Moses did. Do you ever get jealous of Moses’ encounter with God? Paul is assuring us that Moses is the one that would be jealous.
I’m beginning this discussion about church – not with the corporate body but with individual responsibility. We often think of church as an organization, but while that is true, biblically speaking, it is a body made up of individual Christians. Organizations are only as competent as the people that run them. Our church, which is invested in the body, is only as godly, spiritually strong, God-seeking, purpose driven, [insert more adjectives as necessary], as the individuals that participate in our church.
In other words, everything we decide that church should or shouldn’t be begins with us. If we’re not willing to personally do something or give something up, then we should end the discussion and the endeavor for a more radiant church right here. But if you want a radiant church, start with yourself. Get in that prayer closet. Start dwelling in the Glory of God.