“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light.”

— Ephesians 5:8

Have you ever visited a historical village where a lamplighter lights the street lamps at night? If you have, then you can relate to what Sir Henry Lauder, a famous Scotsman of the turn of the century, saw as he watched a lamplighter one evening at the Hotel Cecil: “I was sitting in the gloaming [dusk], and a man passed the window. He was the lamplighter. He pushed his pole into the lamp and lighted it. Then he went to another and another. Now I couldn’t see him. But I knew where he was by the lights as they broke out down the street, until he had left a beautiful avenue of lights. You are lamplighters. They’ll know where you’ve been by the light you have lit.”

Christ said, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life” (John 8:12) and “The light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19). All of those in whom the Light of life—Jesus Christ—burns brightly must bring light to those who sit in the shadow of darkness so that upon them the wondrous light of Christ might shine. We are the lamplighters. The darkened lamps are the lives and souls of lost men and women who sit in sin’s dark night, far apart from God’s life and light. The flame is Jesus Christ burning within our hearts through His Spirit. The pole is the presentation of Jesus Christ.

Are you a lamplighter for Christ? Have you touched the dark world with the Light of Jesus Christ, encouraging lost men and women to catch fire? The world will know where you are—what you believe—by the lights you have lit. Ask God to teach you the joy of spreading Christ’s Light in a dark world.

“O Lord, send me to the darkest spot on earth!”
Prayer Of John Mackenzie
(19th Century Scottish Missionary To Africa)