You are a chosen race, a priesthood of kingly lineage, a holy nation, a people belonging specially to God, that you may make known the perfections of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light. 1 Pet. 2:9

Sometimes God plants a word into me, and I don't know what He means by it for many days, or even months. It has to be planted, and then I have to wait for it to grow and bear fruit in me. This time the word was "illumination". I seemed to see the word everywhere, we even went to a concert called "Illuminations of the Beyond" (by Messiaen) and yet, funnily enough, I had no illumination as to what God was saying to me about it, beyond the obvious.

I knew that the darker it gets, the brighter the light is, and we're all aware of how important light is, especially at night. If you go outside on a pitch black night with no illumination, you can do nothing except stand still. If you try to walk without light, you may injure yourself and others. Not to mention not knowing what direction to walk in! Some form of illumination is vital. Spiritually it is exactly the same. If we do not have the Light shining on us, in us, and through us, then we may go the wrong way, be injured, or cause injury to others simply because we cannot see. You may in fact end up at a standstill, unable to go on.

Darkness hides things while light does the exact opposite: it reveals and illuminates. When light pierces darkness, you begin to see things you were blind to before; in dawn's light you first see vague shapes in black and white, then objects, then full colour, and eventually you can discern and correctly perceive exactly what things are and where they are. With partial light we cannot make correct judgments about what and where things are.

And, of course, illumination is vital when reading the Scriptures, not just so I can physically see and read, but so that I can spiritually see and read! It is a fact that while we can physically read what is written in the Scriptures, we can still have absolutely no spiritual illumination or revelation about what we just read. It takes spiritual illumination to "turn the light on" and enable us to really see what the words mean. Our mind may comprehend, but it is our spirit that needs to apprehend. If we try to interpret or understand the Scriptures with our mind only, then we are likely to misinterpret and misunderstand; the Author always knows exactly what He means by His own words and only He can illuminate them for us. We must read in the Light (Author) so that we may receive "the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him; illuminating the eyes of your heart" (Eph. 1:17,18).

This cannot be stressed enough. Many people rely on their head knowledge of the Bible and what they think they know and thus they effectively blind themselves to further illumination and revelation from the Author Himself. The verse just quoted speaks of the knowledge of HIM, and not the knowledge of a book; it is heart knowledge of THE Word as a Person, rather than head knowledge of many words about Him.

I recently read a book about an illuminator who lived in the 1700s, and over the course of several weeks, Father began to illuminate for me a little more of what He meant by giving me this word to ponder. I had never heard of an illuminator before. For those who don't know, centuries ago the artist who would decorate the pages of Bibles for the church (and sometimes other books too, but they were almost exclusively Bibles) was called an illuminator. Here is an example of the work an illuminator would do.

This amazingly intricate work required hours and hours of intense concentration and talent. Often the illuminator would decorate or illuminate only one letter on an entire page. What was illuminated to me, is that we are called to do the same thing. We see only such a very small part of the whole Book, the whole Person of Christ, but when He (as my Illuminator) reveals something of Himself to me, I in turn reveal and shine that one "page" for others to also see, doing my best to reveal and illuminate what I have seen through the words I use. We are individually and collectively the living letters/pages of Christ (2 Cor. 3:3). We are part of Him as The Book, The Word of God (John 1:1,14) with His words written on our hearts and illuminated by the Master Illuminator!

In April of this year, my husband Mike celebrated his birthday with a party. One of the gifts he was given was a card from my aunt and uncle. After the celebrations were over, I had a closer look at the card and realised that it was beautifully handmade. Knowing that my aunt is a very talented artist, I asked her if she had made it, and she confirmed that she had. And, it was an illumination! I now have it in a frame on our wall, it is a very special gift from a very special person:

Historically, illuminators would be cloistered away for years doing their work. Unlike some, I don't write lots and lots of words. I seem to spend many hours over few words, instead of producing many words over few hours. Just as the illuminators would spend hours and hours painstakingly drawing and colouring, applying layer upon layer of gold gilt and colour to their work, so I also spend hours and hours with words. And it is not so that they are perfect, nice to look at, or easy to read, but so that I am sure that they are faithful to convey what I see the Author and Illuminator of the Book wants; because then the words are treasured and valued because of Who the words come from and belong to.

The illuminators were sometimes paid for their work, and the more of a book they illuminated, the more costly and expensive that book was. Anything of real value is costly, but not only in terms of money. I don't write to sell books, I don't even write to convince others of what I write about. My primary aim in writing is simply to record what I have seen and heard from Above, doing what my Master requires and desires. And that may, or may not, be beneficial to anyone other than me! And it may even be for a time in the future and not for now, so I am not interested in statistics or how many people read and comment on what I write. I don't do what I do because people want me to, but because my Father wants me to. Regardless, it is a costly thing in time, energy, integrity, and resolve, while also being a very deeply valuable thing, rewarded with the presence and companionship of working with the Author of All!

It is better to write one sentence, even only one word that is illuminated by the Holy Spirit of God, than to write a book or an entire library. He does not need our superfluous words. He can convey an entire universe of meaning to a person through one single letter if need be!

Books used to be people's most prized possession just a few generations ago; they were treasured. Books were often locked away to preserve them. Today, in contrast, books are very cheap, and to a certain extent, words are cheap too. The written word is everywhere you look now, and we have a surfeit of things to read. Today there is too much information and too little transformation. Never before in the history of the world has there been such access to such excess. And we often have an excess of things to say as well as to read! But although the art of illumination is now largely a thing of the past, illumination from Above will never be a thing of the past; these illuminated words are living and are full of Life, Light and Love now, today!

But of course, the most common understanding of illumination is not of applying gold and paint to a page, but simply that of light. The Greek word used in the New Testament for "light" is translated in various forms such as enlightened, illuminated, make men see, give you light, to light up, bring to light, render evident, give understanding to. The word is phos, or photizo, and is the origin of our English word "photo". And anyone who loves photography, knows how important light is. 

Light is Life

Light and illumination are essential to life; our natural world and our spiritual world cannot survive without it. If there was no light, there would be no life on this earth and the same applies to us spiritually.

Light is absolutely necessary for Life and yet many people run from Light or hide from Light instead of embracing it. I recently bought some wheat, and when I got it home I saw that it had weevils in it. Thanks to growing up in Borneo I knew exactly what to do with it, I spread it out on a tray and put it in the sun outside. The weevils simply could not stand the light of the sun and immediately vacated the premises! Within a matter of minutes, the wheat was weevil free. Just like weevils, evils cannot stand the Son shining His Light on His harvest. As Jesus said, "Judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants" (Jn. 3:19-21).

Even though there is darkness all around, and even though the Light in Christ has come, many prefer the darkness. Coming into the Light is costly. Some reject God's Light when He shines through us because they love the darkness more than the Light; in other words, they have something to hide that they do not want to see or have exposed and illuminated.

The first meaning in Hebrew of the word for watchman (tsaphah) was to shine, to be bright; to look out, to enlighten the eyes, to peer, to watch closely. Watchmen would stay up all night long, and with their torches lit they would look for anything strange or potentially dangerous. They were (and still are) very important. Their work is predominantly when it is dark, when it is hard to see, and when most people are asleep and unaware. The watchman keeps watch and shines his light on anything that may be harmful and alerts those who may not be able to see it.

The role of the watchman in the Old Testament was literal, but under the new covenant it becomes spiritual. We are told many times in the Scriptures to be alert and to be on watch: "For you are all children of light and children of the day and you are not children of the night, neither children of darkness. Let us not sleep therefore as the rest, but let us be watchful and sensible." (1 Thess. 5:5,6).

As watchmen our job is to first see and then say what we see to make others aware of what they may not have seen. Humility is essential. Not one of us is immune to deception or blindness - we need to hear what other family members we are close to can see in the light of the Golden Lampstand because without a mirror we cannot see ourselves; we can only see each other. This is one of the very practical reasons why our Father places us alongside other Family members - so that we can help one another by what we see in His Light. There is no condemnation, but only love, because the brothers and sisters that Father knits us together with are part of us, we are one in Christ. All is exposed in His Light, so while today my brother may help me to see the log in my eye, tomorrow I may help my sister in the same way!

What we say is what we have seen, with the aim of bringing others into that place of illumination and seeing, with the eyes of our hearts being lit to see what God wants us to see. In His Light we see the earthly for what it is, and we see the heavenly for what it is, and there is no compromise between the two!

We must stand out like a light in the darkness of this world, like a city on a hill all lit up, like the city mentioned in Revelation 21:23: "The city has no need of sun or moon, for the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its light". We are part of this City of God NOW! We are here on this earth as His light, and with no apologies and no reservations, we SHINE as His Light enters into and illuminates our lives and our hearts!