Ignite Your Faith: The Call to be a Torchbearer for God

The word I have for you today is a bit different from the usual. God has been brewing this in my soul over a couple of days and then gave me a word this morning that he asked me to share with you today.

I’ve been quiet for the last few weeks because I’ve been in prayer and meditation as to where the Lord is taking us as his church and as a nation. God has had me in study mode.

During that time, we’ve had some pretty momentous things that have occurred, not the least of which was Charlie Kirk’s murder. Meanwhile, I’ve been praying for direction because somehow I felt there was a shift. I felt that the Lord had a different direction for us to go.

I don’t talk about this very much, but when I was in fourth grade, the Lord gave me a vision.

I was home sick. My dad and my sister had gone to Wednesday night church, and my mom stayed home with me. That night, the Lord called me to prayer, which was a little unusual, but I felt his call even as a young nine-year-old.

I knelt down by my bed to pray and as I was praying, the Lord gave me a vision. I won’t share all of it with you today, just the part that pertains to what I want to tell you, because the Lord brought it back to me today and directed me that it’s time to share this part. God has never revealed the full meaning of this part of the vision until today and it directly correlates to what I want to share with you.

I was reading in my one-year Bible devotional this morning, and part of the scripture the Lord highlighted for me today was out of Isaiah 60:1–3. I’ve read these verses so many times, but they came alive in a different way today. The text reads,

Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord shines over you. For look, darkness will cover the earth, and total darkness the peoples. But the Lord will shine over you, nations will come to your light, and kings to your shining brightness.

When the Holy Spirit highlighted this verse for me today, it reminded me of the vision that I had in fourth grade. The part that I will share with you is that there was this beautiful shining city, like the New Jerusalem, and I saw it descending from heaven, coming down to earth. At that time, my nine-year-old mind interpreted that as the New Jerusalem coming to earth.

But today, God said, “There is another meaning to this vision that I gave you.” I believe that this reflects what we are going through as his church right now in our present day, in the year 2025. The scripture says, “For look, darkness will cover the earth and total darkness the peoples, but the Lord will shine over you.”

In this day, spiritual darkness has definitely covered so many people. But God has brought radiant light and joy to his children, especially the last couple of weeks. If you’ve been watching like I have, you’ve seen the fires of revival start to sweep across the United States of America—and the world, for that matter of fact.

I believe that this is a period of time when God is separating the light from the darkness. In my vision, this shining city came down to the earth, and there were people inside the city going about their business with joy and with purpose, living God-given lives according to what God had planned for them.

But there were also people outside of the city. Everything outside of the city was as dark as night. The people there were stumbling around with no purpose, just walking, doing nothing. They were sad and miserable, and their clothes were in rags.

In my vision, some of the people came out of the darkness and walked through the gates of the city, which were guarded by God’s angels. They were huge angels and had these magnificent spears.

When some people came in from the darkness and passed through those city gates, they were transformed. As I write this, it still makes me want to cry to think of the joy on their faces as they came out of hopeless darkness into the glorious light, and they became citizens of heaven.

Just as much joy as that brings, it breaks my heart that there were others who came through those city gates and were not transformed. Their clothes didn’t change. Their skin was gray. Each one was like a black pebble on a white beach. They didn’t change. And they didn’t have new life, they didn’t have joy. The angels immediately escorted those people back out of the city forcibly, all because they refused to abandon their rags. They refused to take on the ways of God and to live according to the ways of God.

This is the part of the vision that I never completely understood until now. What the Lord was telling me today is that this part of that vision is a reflection of where we are as the church today. That this is shining city represents more than the physical New Jerusalem—that this represents our spiritual world right now.

In my vision, the citizens of Heaven were not making forays into the darkness but were living in the light. Each one shined gloriously, almost like an angel. Some of those outside of the city, in the darkness, couldn’t help but notice the light and be curious. They were looking for a better life, and they came in through the gates of the city out of curiosity.

Meanwhile, others were so lost in their darkness that they ignored the light. They had no desire to change. That felt really important to me. I felt the Lord tell me today, “Lives will not be changed because of human effort.” There’s nothing that I can do that is going to change somebody’s life. It’s the Holy Spirit that changes hearts.

Right now I’m talking to God’s children—those who have already decided to follow Christ. You see, I see that our job is to live fully in the light, to walk in God’s ways, and to go where he directs us to go, to do the jobs that we’ve been given. In addition, as we do, we are safe. God’s angel warriors are there, guarding his people day and night, looking after us. God is keeping us safe as we’re going about his business.

Then I continued my reading in the One-Year Bible and picked up where I left off yesterday at Philippians 1:27. As I did, I was amazed at how the next scripture directly correlated to what I had just read. Philippians 1:27 says, “Just one thing: As citizens of heaven, live your life worthy of the gospel of Christ.” This just continued the theme that God had me on this morning.

We need to live well as citizens of the shining city of Heaven as God’s sons and daughters. Throughout Philippians, Paul continues to teach us how to live as God’s sons and daughters. Starting in verse five, he says we need to adopt the same attitude as the one that Jesus Christ had. He was all God, but he emptied himself and he humbled himself by becoming obedient, even to the point of death. I challenge all of God’s sons and daughters to be willing to come to the point where we empty ourselves even to the point of death. Because death has no sting for us. It just means we get to go be with Christ.

Paul goes on to say in Philippians 2:12 that we need to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling. Dear reader, I challenge all of us to not be judgmental of our brothers and sisters. That’s the Holy Spirit’s work. Let God tell them what they need to do. It’s not up to us to decide who’s a Christian and who’s not. I know that’s a hard word. And while, yes, we need to be careful who we follow, we need to take care and not be judgmental. We are not the judge. God Almighty is the judge. Our job is to love. All lives are precious. It doesn’t matter who they are or where they come from. We are to love them.

Verses 14–17 read, “Do everything without grumbling and arguing, so that you may be blameless and pure, children of God who are faultless in a crooked and perverted generation, among whom you shine like stars in the world by holding firm to the word of life.”

When we live according to God’s ways, we are to have compassion and we are to value life. We see that reflected in Psalm 72 where God said that he would put a sense of justice in the heart of righteous kings, that he would show them his ways of justice, and that’s to rescue the poor, the afflicted, and helpless, to save the poor from oppression and violence (verses 12–14). Those are God’s ways.

Then my devotions ended with this sobering instruction from Proverbs that I had never remembered reading before. I’ve read the Bible my entire life and this just jumped off the pages at me today. Proverbs 24:11–12 reads:

Rescue those being taken off to death, and save those stumbling toward slaughter. If you say, “But we didn’t know about this,” won’t he who weighs hearts consider it? Won’t he who protects your life know? Won’t he repay a person according to his work?

Everyone who is walking around in the dark outside the shining walls that guard heaven’s citizens are stumbling around in the dark—and that’s the way it was in my vision. Those in the dark were stumbling around without any clear sense of purpose, unlike the shining citizens of heaven, who each had a job and a purpose and were going about their business.

Last Friday I wrote down a scripture from Ephesians that I thought I would share with you today. Little did I know that God wanted to expand that scripture with everything that I’ve already said.

God has used this period of time that we are in and the tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s murder to awaken so many of his sleeping children and to bring so many out of darkness. Paul penned these instructions to the Ephesians that are so critical for us to remember today. Ephesians 5, starting in verse 8, reads:

For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth, testing what is pleasing to the Lord. Don’t participate in the fruitless works of darkness, but instead expose them, for it is shameful even to mention what is done by them in secret. Everything exposed by the light is made visible, for what makes everything visible is light. Therefore it is said: Get up, sleeper, and rise up from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.

Now that we’re awake, it’s critical to not be lulled back to sleep by the distractions of the enemy. That’s what the enemy wants and you can expect that resistance to come. If you’ve recently had a heart change, expect some pushback from the enemy. He’s gonna want you to go back to sleep. He’s gonna want you to go back to the ways of Babylon—the comfort life and the hedonism.

But be strong and don’t let the new holy fire in your heart die. Fan it into flame, like Paul told Timothy. Be a fire brand, be a torch bearer. God is calling us to be ministers of his holy fire and to let our lives shine with his glory.

If you’re reading this today and you have no idea what I’m talking about, or maybe you do—maybe you’ve walked away from God, maybe your heart’s been cold, and God’s tugging on your heart. You feel something inside your chest, inside your mind, that resonates with you and you’re thinking there has to be more. If you feel that, that’s the Holy Spirit pulling you to give your heart to him. If that’s you, I challenge you to pray and invite the Lord into your heart, to ask him to show you how to follow his ways so that you can be one of his citizens.

The Bible says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord and believe it in your heart, that he will save you. That’s it. You gotta decide to follow God. Listen to the Holy Spirit and acknowledge that tugging that you feel right now. If you ignore it, it will go away. But if you listen to it and respond, it can continue. That’s the Lord guiding us and showing us how to step forward and walk in his ways—and the first step is to come to him.

If you prayed today and you’ve invited the Lord into your heart, please find a good Bible-believing church that can support you in your new walk.

I pray that this message goes deep and that you take it to heart. Fan into flame the Holy Spirit fire.

Jesus is King.

Note: All scriptures quotations are Christian Standard Bible (CSB).

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