Quotation from Matt Redman's blog

Shine like stars...

Hi everyone, and once again a massive thanks for all these inspiring comments. The tour with Chris and Louie has been going great, and every night we've been singing the song 'Shine'. The song came into being as a response to the verse in Phillipians 2 - which says that in this generation we, as the church, 'shine like stars in the universe'. If you know anything about stars, that's a pretty amazing thought. Seeing them from such unfathomable distances away, we can be unaware of just how outrageous these stars are. Take the Sun as an example. They says it's about 27 million degrees fahrenheit in its unfathmomably hot core. And burning up about 5 or 6 million tonnes of it's own mass every second. Or, check out the star Sirius. This one is about twice the mass and diameter of the sun, and 23 times as luminous. So when the bible tells us 'we shine like stars' in this generation, that's some pretty intense stuff. What I love most about this verse though is how affirming it is. It doesn't say 'go and try your best and if you're an expert at Christianity one day you might even shine'. No, it says 'you DO shine' - we already shine - even on our bad days. That's good news for the lady who's showing up at the office every day wondering if her being there really makes a difference. Or the guy at college living on campus and losing confidence in his ability to shine because of how full-on environment it is. It's so easy to lose our confidence in this area - and this verse is so helpful and encouraging. I'll end with an old line from Charles Spurgeon, which sums it all up for me: "Never lose heart in the power of the gospel".

It encourages me in between this lovely packed schedule of mine.

Atun

PS: Read more of his blog here.