Stars and Black Holes

ALL CREATION DECLARES THE GLORY OF THE RISEN LORD

1. This past weekend, I went to Advance Auto parts because one of my headlights on my car had gone out. I went to the section where they kept the lights to look for one for my Chrysler Sebring. When I was looking on the back of the light container, I saw something that struck me as very peculiar. They rated their lights according to Temperature, Brightness, and Heat on a scale from 1-4. 1 being the highest and 4 being the lowest.

LIGHT 1: Temperature (4) Brightness (4) Life (1)
LIGHT 2: Temperature (3) Brightness (3) Life (2)
LIGHT 3: Temperature (1) Brightness (1) LIFE (4)

2. What struck me about this was that the

BRIGHTEST LIGHTS BURN THEMSELVES OUT FASTEST

and the

SIMPLE LIGHT HAS THE BEST LIFE

3. When we strive to be the brightest light on the road of life, we can burn ourselves out pretty quickly.

4. I was thinking about the concepts of stars as being lights. So, I switched from thinking about my car's lights to stars in the sky. I think back to my science days recalling: When a star expends all its energy, its gravitational pull causes it to collapse and eventually become a black hole. A star is intended to bring light whereas a black-hole drains all the light around it. This really struck me.

5. THE STARS (US) WERE INTENDED TO SHINE THE LIGHT OF OUR CREATOR BUT INSTEAD, FOCUSING ALL ITS ENERGY INWARDS, WE HAVE TURNED INTO BLACK HOLES. This is what happens when we become self-centered. "The Black Hole of Self-Centeredness." Believe you me. I can talk with confidence about this subject because I am intimately familiar with it.

6. IF WE BECOME SELF-CENTERED BLACK HOLES, HOW CAN WE SHINE THE LIGHT OF GOD?

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1. This new found understanding led me to a new image that popped into my head. I saw five stars. Each star represented the points of the five-fold ministry found in Ephesians 4:11 -

And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers...

2. I then saw those 5 stars form a constellation of an arrow pointing towards the moon, or, the body of Christ. I understood this to mean that the 5-fold giftings in unison are used to point to Christ and to the body of believers. After all, the stars have been used as guidepoints to get from point A to point B.

3. But then, I saw one of those stars dissappear. Now, the constellation was incomplete. ONE OF THE STARS HAD BECOME A BLACK HOLE. NOW THE CONSTELLATION CANNOT POINT TOWARDS THE INTENDED DESTINATION.

4. I took this to mean that God is requiring us each to be in full operation of our giftings and using them for the good of the others. No single star can make a constellation and if any are not shining their light then the message fades.

5. THE MESSAGE THEN IS TO LEARN, KNOW AND UNDERSTAND YOUR CALLING. FOCUS ON THE CONSTELLATION AND NOT THE STAR. THEN, ALLOW GOD'S LIGHT TO SHINE THROUGH YOU IN UNISON FOR THE GOOD OF THE BODY OF CHRIST.