“For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness” – God alone is the Creator. Anything good and edifying comes from Him. There is a darkness and all men live in that spiritual darkness. All men have fallen short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23) and need a savior. Jesus Christ came to be that Savior! His work on the cross pays the debt for our sins and by believing this, a person is brought out of darkness and into the light of God. They are brought into the light and saved from the darkness by a spiritual birth (John 3:3). Click here to learn more about the beautiful gift of salvation (why we need to be saved and how to be saved) that Jesus offers each person.
“who has shone in our hearts” – We who by faith receive Jesus and are spiritually born again, now have the Spirit of God contained within us (1 Cor 3:16). We have been a first partaker of His beauty and glory as He has reached into our darkness and offered us hope in the salvation of Jesus Christ. We are now new creations in Him and desire our lives to reflect Him. We express our gratitude and offer our lives to Him, as we once were dead, but now are alive.
“to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” – One purpose of the Spirit of God indwelling our lives is that we now can experience the divine nature and escape the corruption of the world upon us (2 Peter 1:4). Instead, to the measure that we yield to Him and allow His will and His purposes to be expressed through us, we radiate His supernatural love to the world around us. We reflect the beauty and the good news that comes through Jesus Christ who is the face of God (John 14:9).
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels” – It’s a mystery that His Holy Spirit can be contained within us, but He is. With the sole purpose of manifesting the treasure of Jesus through our lives. So that His beauty, glory and goodness can touch the lives of those around us. He is the source of our creativity. He is the True and Original Creator, we are just a conduit and our choices can allow us to reflect His glory – to choose to yield to His reflective glory is an act of worship. Any goodness or beauty (in us or from us), the purpose of our lives, the goal of our ‘creations’ is to draw people to Christ. As the goodness of God draws men to repentance (Rom 2:4). There is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved (Acts 4:10-12). Jesus is the greatest treasure that any person, by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit, can come to possess.
“that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” – His whole purpose in creation was to reveal Himself and reflect His glory so we would KNOW that HE alone is good and for us. So that we would choose to worship Him and experience all we were created to experience – receiving love from Him and fellowship with Him. We were created to receive His love and respond to Him. Now we choose to express our creativity in ways that reflect His glory. We reject that we can do anything good (of spiritual, eternal value) apart from Him. We desire to step aside and submit our will to His so that His glory is seen and not us.
We worship Him with our choices. We use our free will, to create with the intent of blessing His heart (as He is our Father) and also increasing God’s footprint on this earth. We desire to create in ways that allow Him to reflect His character and Who He is. That our lives (and anything that flows from them) would, in increasing measure, radiate His glory so that His beauty and His goodness would be manifest and give people opportunity to see Him and to receive His revelation of love.