I adore candles! Especially ones containing my favorite fragrant essential oils for each season {Christmas Spirit and cinnamon – YUM!}. In my home, when it comes to candles, the more the merrier!
We modern day people enjoy candles for their beauty and fragrance, as in, they are a luxury to those of us blessed enough to be reading on some electronic device. But every so often, when our electricity goes out, candles become a necessity, and they provide the light needed in our dark spaces.
I was reading in John 1:9-13 where John talks about Jesus being the True Light, the genuine, perfect, and steadfast Light which came into the sin-darkened world {that btw, He created, owns, and sustains} and how many in this world rejected (and still reject) Him.
As I was digging deeper into this passage, a picture of a candle came to mind, and I began mulling over the fact that a “candle” is how Jesus comes into the world today… how He lights the dark places… and what He uses to illuminate the souls of men and women walking in this perpetual darkness.
And those who belong to Him (who have received His Light and welcomed Him as Lord) – – – we ARE these candles. Well, at least we are the wax the candles are made of.
Well, at least we are the wax the candles are made of.
Think about it. Jesus is the Light (John 8:12), the Holy Spirit is the Flame (Matt. 3:11), and we are the vessels that He fills and uses to deliver His Light into the dark places and people of this world.
In fact, God makes us into His candles in a similar fashion that a candle maker creates a candle we use today. The ingredients are basically the same: wax, wick, fragrance, color, heat, container, shelf space, and fire to set it aflame.
Wax – (us)
Wick – (Jesus Christ as Lord of our lives)
Fragrance – (the aroma of our lives as we grow in our knowledge of Jesus)
Color – (the multifaceted and uniquely beautiful personalities God has created within us)
Heat – (the thing that softens and/or melts the wax, making it pliable and formable)
Container – (the thing in which the melted wax is placed, causing it to conform to that particular shape)
Shelf – (the thing on which this candle sits to cool and fully form)
Fire – (the Holy Spirit, which sets our hearts and lives aflame with the Light of the World)
Kind of cool, huh? God takes ordinary blobs of wax and uses the heat of circumstances around us to cause us to seek Him. When “self” melts and we surrender to Jesus as Lord, Jesus (wick) takes up residence in our blob of pliable wax, giving us a new purpose and places us where He can best use us (container)for His glory.
God applies the color He has created in us to make us beautiful and, as we grow, we take on the lovely fragrance Christ.
We will all experience seasons of waiting (shelf) and may be reheated and reshaped and remolded quite a few times as God prepares to light the world through us. But eventually, as we conform to His image God positions us where the Holy Spirit’s fire can shine through us the brightest.
{Disclaimer: The Light shines most bright and makes the biggest difference in the darkest places. God doesn’t make us into His candles so that we can adorn the comfortable places, but so that we can light the dark spaces.}
Are you in the process of becoming God’s candle?
Is Jesus truly Lord of your life, or have you been trying to live life on your own terms (which in the end, my friends, is just like being only a meaningless blob of wax).
Is the heat on high around your life right now and you feel like you are melting?
Are you being shaped or reshaped into different containers, poured from one place and into another… and maybe into a space you wouldn’t have chosen right now?
OR are you sitting on a shelf, waiting to be used and wondering why God hasn’t pulled you out yet?
Maybe you are sitting in darkness and didn’t realize that you needed Jesus’ Light to come into your space? (See John 12:46 and this post.)
God has one purpose for His candles – that is to shine the Light of Jesus – so that the dark world will be aflame for the glory of God.
If you are in the midst of becoming God’s candle, may I encourage you today to press into the process? Remain pliable. Let Him mold you, take up residence within you, and trust that He is pouring your life into the shape and space where His brilliant Light can shine through you the clearest.
God has colored you for this purpose and will not waste a single moment of a life surrendered to Him. You may feel like just a blob of wax, but in the Candlemaker’s hands, you are His way of lighting the world.
“You are the light of [Christ to] the world… Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good deeds and moral excellence, and [recognize and honor and] glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16 (Amplified)
or as The Message puts it:
“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.
If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand.
Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!
Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
Matthew 5:14-16 (The Message)
“You used to be like people living in the dark, but now you are people of the light because you belong to the Lord. So act like
people of the light”
Ephesians 5:8 (CEV)
The Lord has given us this command,
Acts 14:27 (CEV)
“I have placed you here
as a light
for the Gentiles.
You are to take
the saving power of God
to people everywhere on earth.”
So my sisters, “Arise, shine [be radiant with the glory and brilliance of the Lord]; for your light has come, and the glory and brilliance of the Lord has risen upon you.” (Isaiah 60:1, Amp)
Prayer: Lord, please light the darkness around me through me… wherever you place me… in whatever kind of container you choose. For your glory alone~
