"When the moon is not full, the stars shine more brightly." Unknown

I was gone last week to see my parents and the best sister that anyone could ever ask for so I didn’t get a chance to tell you what God had shown me last week. I figured out a little bit about why God sent me to see them. They were on a mission trip in New Orleans so they were a little bit closer to me than they normally would have been. I believe that I got a chance to go down and see them to see how our lives, as Christians, should really look.

You see I was driving down to New Orleans and I was going across Lake Pontchartrain and I got a clear view of how a Christian’s life is supposed to look. As I drove across, what seemed like a 15 mile bridge, God showed me how my life was supposed to reflect the Son's. The sun was setting and you couldn’t really see any sky in between the sun and the water. All you could see is what looked like one big sun. The reflection of the sun in the water looked so much like the sun that you couldn’t tell them apart. So that got me thinking about what else reflected the sun in that way? The Moon! The whole purpose of the Moon is to reflect the light of the sun. So that got me thinking about the creation story in the Bible. Look with me at Genesis and see what you think about this.

Genesis 1:1-5

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

I then looked and saw that it wasn’t until the fourth day that God created the stars, moon, and the sun.

Genesis 1:14-18

Then God said, "Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; And let them be for lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth"; and it was so. And God made two greater lights, the greater light to govern the day, and the lesser light to govern the night; He made the stars also. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, And to govern the day and the night, and to separate the light from the darkness; and God saw that it was good.

So just think before God created the stars, moon, and the sun it had to be pretty much pitch black dark during the night. So you have three full nights with no light in the world. What I find very interesting is that the Bible tells us in 1 John 1:5 "And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all." So the whole reason for the creation of the moon is to reflect the light of the sun so that there would be no darkness at all in the world.

The more that I thought about this and the picture of the water reflecting the sun, the more I figured out the reason for the creation of man. Our one purpose in life is to reflect the Son. Romans 2:19 says that we are a light to those who are in darkness. So why is there still so much darkness in the world if God's children are supposed to reflect His Son? Then it hit me. A full moon reflects the maximum amount of sunlight. It is easy to see your way in the night when the moon is full. As the earth comes in between the moon and the sun, the moon reflects less and less sunlight until the moon is completely dark. The same thing goes for Christians today. The more and more world that we have that gets in between us and God the less of the Son that we reflect. In Matthew 5:14-16, Jesus said that we are the light of the world and that we are to let our light shine before men which would glorify God the father. It is our job to reflect the Son's light in a world filled with darkness. The sad fact is that sometimes we have a hard time reflecting that light. The same thing happens with us that happens with the moon. It only takes a little bit of the world to creep in and start eliminating some of the Son's light.

So is your Christian walk really reflecting the full amount of the Son's light? Can people tell a difference between the real Son and the reflection of that Son in your life? These are a few questions that I had to ask myself about my walk, and now I ask you. Luke 19:40 says if our lives don’t reflect the Son and cry out for Him to this dark and lost world, then the rocks will cry out for Him.

"When the moon is not full, the stars shine more brightly." Since the purpose of our lives are just like the moon, and we are supposed to do nothing but reflect the Son, what does your life look like? Are the stars shining more brightly than the full life that God has given you through His Son?