Members Exclusive July 2025
Members Exclusive
Let Your Light Shine
Introduction
Over recent years, we have seen so much happening in the world – Covid, Russia invading Ukraine, climate upheavals, to name just a few – fear is everywhere among the people around us, including the body of Christ. We need to step out of this camp and embrace some of the incredible opportunities that are calling us to offer something different. Listen to this.
Isaiah 60:1–2 – “1 Arise, shine; for your light has come, And the glory of the LORD has risen upon you. 2 For behold, darkness will cover the earth And deep darkness the peoples; But the LORD will rise upon you And His glory will appear upon you.”
In such dark times as we may be living in now, the glory of the Lord is going to come and rise upon His people. Isaiah says His glory will appear upon us. How exciting. In such times, God wants us in the game.
Psalm 110:2-3 says: He stretches forth His sceptre - which is the church, His people.
We are commissioned and empowered to handle whatever is happening in this current life. We are not meant to hide in a fort waiting for a rescue that won't come - we are called to go out into the land and bring redemption, as far as the curse is found.
Our gospel today has the power to create societies that are based on freedom and life as found in Christ. We cannot meet this call unless we go out and address the real-world issues, bringing life to them.
The enemy isn’t winning - he was defeated 2,000 years ago. We have a calling in Christ to fulfil this, and each of us has only a limited number of years on earth to do so. Our salvation is not at stake here - life is not about salvation – that is only a starting point - life is about getting to know God and achieving His purposes during our time on earth. Our rewards for the rest of eternity depend on this.
We can't fight something with nothing. “Nothing” is what Western civilisation is increasingly built on under the guise of humanism, liberalism, wokism, etc. Sadly, our enemy has been able to arm his people with conviction. These are people who truly believe in abortion, drugs, wokism, taking the money from those who have worked and sacrificed for it, and giving it to those who are too lazy to get out of bed in the morning. The fallen world sees these as part of freedom, and woe to anyone who challenges their view. But there is no freedom to be found here.
Beyond Discipline to Incarnation
We must go beyond discipline to incarnation. Have the things we've applied our disciplines to become so deeply incarnated in each of us that they have become a natural way of life?
Acts 17:28 – “For in Him we live and move and have our being.”
If we are still struggling to read and study the Scriptures, to worship and pray, and so on, we are not truly in the game. We must progress to the point where what we have gained through spiritual discipline becomes our second nature, meaning it naturally flows out of us in all situations.
This applies to our work ethic, integrity, faithfulness in stewardship, manners, and social skills. This isn't a new way of life or a subculture we’ve embraced – it’s a time-honoured way of walking with God and receiving what He has for us.
But it is founded on the core principle of the cross, which teaches us that we must first deny our fallen or selfish nature any expression or space to operate.
If we don’t get these basics right—if we can’t implement them in our homes, with our families and spouses, and at our workplaces—we’ll always be on the back foot, and that approach will not serve us well. Listen to this quote:
The best defense is offense. We must have some mode of attack, by expanding God’s kingdom—first in our hearts, then in our own families, and then in the world. Yes, you have to have borders, but our duty is not to let the borders stay there. We have to push outward, infinitely.
(Brother Ignatius).
Citizens of the Kingdom of God
To be citizens of the Kingdom of God, we must learn what we need to sacrifice rather than chasing after what we can have. Pursuing what we want often leads us to loosen or abandon our restraints. Because we all still carry a fallen human nature, we can never allow ourselves to do that. It turns us into self-centred individuals, and the evidence of what that produces is all around us today. It’s a mess.
That's why discipline is no longer the primary concern; it's a given and obvious. If we're still struggling with discipline or constantly showing up for training, we're not ready for the challenge – the enemy will take us in and spit us out. That's why the trait we value most in the people we work with today is incarnation.
Hebrews 12:1-2 – “1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
This is one of the great, moving passages of the New Testament, and in it, the writer provides us with a near-perfect summary of the Christian life.
Christians are not people who casually stroll along the highways of life; that is not our calling. We travel on the high road. We are not tourists who return each night to where we started; we are pilgrims who are always on the move. The goal is nothing less than becoming more like Christ. The Christian life is heading somewhere, and at the end of each day, we would do well to ask ourselves: ‘Am I any closer?’.
Also in the Christian life, we have an inspiration. We think of the unseen cloud of witnesses in Hebrews 11; and they are witnesses in a double sense, for they have testified to their confession of Christ, and they are now witnesses to our conduct. True disciples are like runners in a busy stadium.
A Challenge
In the Christian life, we face a challenge. If we are surrounded by the greatness of the past, we are also challenged by our own sin. If we want to travel far, we need to travel light. There's an important duty in life to let go of unnecessary things.
These may be habits, pleasures, self-indulgences, or mixing with the wrong people that hold us back. We must shed them, just as athletes take off their tracksuits when they go to the starting blocks; often, we will need the help of Christ and the saints He has joined us with to do so.
Once we cast off any weights or sins that hinder us and run with perseverance, we gain the focus that will help us finish well—and that is, of course, Jesus: “Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2a).
By insisting that we focus on Jesus, the Hebrews writer is calling us to focus on Jesus’ humanity as He demonstrated it here on earth. Jonathan Edwards remarked beautifully concerning this, that we are to “take notice of Christ’s excellence, which is a... feast.”107. And so, it is!
Jesus is the pioneer and author of all faith in both the Old and New Testaments. He initiates all faith and empowers it. He lived in complete dependence on the Father (Hebrews 10:7–10). It was His unwavering faith in God that allowed Him to endure mocking, crucifixion, rejection, and desertion—and left Him perfect in faith.
As F. F. Bruce has said, “Had He come down by some gesture of supernatural power, He would never have been hailed as the ‘perfecter of faith’ nor would He have left any practical example for others to follow.”.
The remarkable fact is, He endured everything by faith, and therefore, He is uniquely qualified to be the “author and perfecter” of the faith of His followers.
A question we must ask ourselves is: Do I recognise the need for faith to run the race? To do this, we must “fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.”.
This means we must deliberately lift our eyes from other distracting things and focus with utter concentration on Him and continue doing so. This is fundamental to a life of faith and finishing the race!
So – let’s gird up our loins, embrace the power of the Holy Spirit and let our light shine in such a way that it will reclaim the territory that has been stolen from us.
May God bless you as you do. Bruce Billington