El­der Arnold Gopeesingh

Rhe­ma Fel­low­ship Min­istries

“Ye are the salt of the earth, but if the salt has lost its savour, where­with shall it be salt­ed? It is hence­forth good for noth­ing but to be cast out and to be trod­den un­der­foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill can­not be hid­den.  Nei­ther do men light a can­dle and put it un­der a bushel, but on a can­dle­stick, and it giveth light un­to all that are in the house.  Let your light so shine be­fore men that they may see your good works and glo­ri­fy your Fa­ther which is in heav­en.”

(Matthew 5:13 to 16).

In the above scrip­ture, Je­sus, ad­dress­ing His au­di­ence, is show­ing them the im­por­tant role that they have to play whilst liv­ing in their en­vi­ron­ment. Je­sus used salt and light to bring His il­lus­tra­tion. When I think of “Salt”, the first thing that comes to my mind is preser­va­tion, and an­oth­er word is savour. In the case of “light”, that which shows the way. In a nut­shell, Je­sus is telling those lis­ten­ing to Him that they are re­spon­si­ble for pre­serv­ing things from de­cay­ing and al­so show­ing oth­ers the way.

Peo­ple must feel com­fort­able look­ing to you for ad­vice, en­cour­age­ment and di­rec­tion. Your life must stand out as a pil­lar of hope, erad­i­cat­ing the dark­ness in the lives of oth­ers.

Now, the dark­ness that I am re­fer­ring to can take many forms. Dark­ness in this in­stance speaks of all that is neg­a­tive in the life of an in­di­vid­ual. That which hin­ders that per­son from en­joy­ing life to its fullest and from achiev­ing their full po­ten­tial. od wants you to win and be suc­cess­ful in your en­deav­ours on earth, and while I await heav­en to be in the pres­ence of God for­ev­er, we are told to oc­cu­py till He comes.

Take a few min­utes of your time and just use your imag­i­na­tion, look­ing at Trinidad and To­ba­go and I am sure you would agree with me that there are those liv­ing among us who need to hear the mes­sage of hope.

What is hope? It is a con­fi­dent ex­pec­ta­tion in the promis­es of God, ground­ed in His char­ac­ter and faith­ful­ness. Un­like a wish or vague de­sire, it is an­chored in the cer­tain­ty that God ful­fils what He pro­claims. Je­sus’ very life demon­strat­ed this, for He en­tered a world that was un­der strong Ro­man rule, and the peo­ple who were not Ro­mans lived in tough times, but Je­sus of­fered them hope. The prophet Isa­iah de­clared, “The peo­ple that walked in dark­ness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shad­ow of death, up­on them hath the light shined.” (Isa­iah 9:2). This light came in the per­son of Je­sus Christ “For un­to us a child is born, un­to us a son is giv­en: and the gov­ern­ment shall be up­on his shoul­der: and his name shall be called Won­der­ful, Coun­sel­lor, The Mighty God, the ever­last­ing Fa­ther, the Prince of Peace.” (Isa­iah 9:6). I be­lieve it is a good thing if we all, in our dai­ly lives, be­come that pil­lar of hope as far as pos­si­ble. This is an in­di­vid­ual ac­tion, the very same way Je­sus saw it nec­es­sary in His dai­ly en­deav­ours; we can all do the same.

The Apos­tle Paul wrote in Ro­mans 8:19: “For the earnest ex­pec­ta­tion of the cre­ation wait­eth for the man­i­fes­ta­tion of the sons of God.”

There is a world out there wait­ing for you and me to show up; we can­not dis­ap­point. Be­come that voice of hope in your home, com­mu­ni­ty, and at your job. There is a world that you op­er­ate in that is your har­vest field you can bring about pos­i­tive change. The pow­er of God re­sides in you, my friend. I would like to en­cour­age you to per­son­alise the above scrip­ture writ­ten by Paul, see­ing your­self as one of the sons of God who are will­ing to show up in your gen­er­a­tion.

Al­low your life to be that salt where there is seem­ing­ly de­cay. Where there is dark­ness, en­ter in and be that light to those liv­ing there. It is de­clared in Eph­esians 5:8: “For you were once dark­ness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as chil­dren of light.”

Al­so, “But you are a cho­sen peo­ple, a roy­al priest­hood, a holy na­tion, a pe­cu­liar peo­ple; that ye should show forth the prais­es of him who hath called you out of dark­ness in­to his mar­vel­lous light.” (1 Pe­ter 2:9).

Light brings hope where dark­ness seems to pre­vail. God is de­pend­ing on you to show the way. You are not alone; the Fa­ther has giv­en us the Holy Spir­it to teach, lead, and guide us as we yield to Him.

You are sig­nif­i­cant in God’s plan and loved by God. He has con­fi­dence that you could do what you have been called to do.

Stand strong, stand firm, in the pow­er of God’s might.

May God con­tin­ue to rich­ly bless you.