Several years ago, I tried to preach through "The Sermon on the Mount" for the first time. I remember vividly when I studied the Beatitudes and meditated on the words of the Savior when he said "blessed are those which are persecuted for rightouesness sake."

The reason this sticks in my mind is that I remember saying,"I can't name a time when I was ever persecuted for doing the right thing." I felt guilty and left out but I quickly dismissed those feelings with the idea, "oh, that just means God has blessed me to live without persecution."

That blessing may be true at times but that is not what was happening at all!

Paul told Timothy,

"Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." (2nd Timothy 3:12)

The reason that I was not being persecuted was that I was not living righteously enough to be noticed!

I had watered down my speech where it was no longer salty. I was not living in a way that showed others the life of Christ. I had hid my light so that I would not offend.

This behavior robbed me of blessings but more importantly, it was robbing God of His glory.

God has designed it so that when we do a good thing, the glory He receives is magnified. He gets glory when we act in faith because He gave us the faith. Moreover, He gets magnified glory when another child of God sees us do well and gives glory to God for our faith. Even more, their statement gives God glory and another person can then glorify God for that. And then it just explodes from there.

We should not concern ourselves with what others think. There are going to be two reactions to our good works. They will either glorify God or think we are "drunk with new wine." (Acts 2:13)

Our focus should be to fulfill what David charges us with in the Psalms:

"Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised in the city of our God,in the mountain of his holiness." (Psalm 48:1)

David is telling us that our praise should match the greatness of God. The only way that is possible is if we let our light shine!

This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine.
Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine!