The Shadows We Cast - Final
As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God. 1 Peter 2:16 KJV
Says a thoughtful writer, speaking of influence: “Let a man press nearer to Christ, and open his nature more widely to admit the energy of Christ, and, whether he knows it or not—it is better, perhaps, if he does not know it—he will certainly be growing in power for God with men, and for men with God.” We get power for Christ only as we become filled with the very life of Christ.
Everywhere about us there are lives, cold, cheerless, and dull, which by the touch of our hand, in loving warmth, in Christ’s name, would be wondrously blessed and transformed. Someone tells of going into a jeweler’s store to look at certain gems. Among other stones he was shown an opal. As it lay there, however, it appeared dull and altogether lusterless. Then the jeweler took it in his hand and held it for some moments, and again showed it to his customer. Now it gleamed and flashed with all the glories of the rainbow. It needed the touch and warmth of a human hand to bring out its iridescence.
There are human lives everywhere about us that are rich in their possibilities of beauty and glory. No gems or jewels are so precious; but as we see them in their earthly condition, they are dull and lusterless, without brightness or loveliness. Perhaps they are even covered with stain and denied by sin. Yet they need only the touch of the hand of Christ to bring out the radiance, the loveliness, the beauty of the divine image in them. And you and I must be the hand of Christ to these lusterless or stained lives. Touching them with our warm love, the sleeping splendor that is in them … will yet shine out, the beginning of glory for them.
The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold us.
Which are the people who have influenced us most? Not the ones who thought they did, but those who had not the remotest notion that they were influencing us. In the Christian life the implicit is never conscious; if it is conscious, it ceases to have this unaffected loveliness which is the characteristic of the touch of Jesus. We always know when Jesus is at work because He produces in the commonplace something that is inspiring.—Oswald Chambers
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Everybody has influence! “No man liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself.” Your life is bound to affect others! “No man is an island!” Sometimes just a word or a glance or a smile can make a big difference—how you look or sound or seem. If it’s not cheerful and victorious and uplifting, it’s bound to hurt somebody and pull them down with you. You’re either going to pull people up to your level or drag them down to yours—one or the other!—David Berg
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There is never an end of opportunities for personal helpfulness... There is a rich, possible wayside ministry, for instance, made up of countless small courtesies, gentle words, mere passing touches on the lives of those we casually meet! Impulses given by putting a little more warmth into our ordinary salutations; influences flowing directly or indirectly from the things we do, and the words we speak.
We naturally crave gentleness. It is like a genial summer to our life. Beneath its warm, nourishing influence, beautiful things in us grow.—J. R. Miller
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You are the salt of the earth… You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.—Mat. 5:13–16
Anchor TFI [The Hammer!]