We are called now, and in the days ahead, to be a lighthouse – bringing light to an increasingly dark world. What is it that a lighthouse does? It warns of dangerous waters – it teaches truth and exposes error. It guides to safe harbours – it provides a community, a haven, a hope in the tumultuous seas of our world.

In this context, the Lord called our church to a service of corporate repentance during Good Friday where we could confess before Him the ways we have fallen short of Him, both individually and as a body. It was impressed upon us that this was very necessary before we could more forward into His inheritance for us.

The service itself, which took place in Friday afternoon, was very powerful. We wrote our sins out, then – literally – nailed them to the cross. There is something particularly moving and cathartic about a physical action like that. I do believe that we moved many things in the heavens that day!

If fact, later on I received a further vision. I saw the lighthouse; it was if I saw the light rays shining out into the darkness. Then, it was if I was inside the lighthouse itself, another layer being unveiled to the vision.

The light source was at the centre of the lighthouse, I became aware of who this Light represented – Jesus Himself. Perhaps a no-brainer, but I saw it deeper that I had before.

We, as the church, are represented by the panes of glass that make up the lighthouse reflectors. When we are dirty and grubby, the light does not shine through us well. When we are cleaned, the light can shine through us and out into the world much more brightly.

This cleaning was the purpose of the Good Friday service; that we might be cleaner, more transparent, and hence more able to be that which we are called to be – a reflector of Christ.

Hence for us we enter more fully into what we are called to be, that of a lighthouse.

I also saw that the Light of Christ is the centre of the Church, without that Light we are nothing, worse than nothing – a counterfeit – a building that pretends to be something that it is most evidently not as darkness falls. If the light in you be darkness, how great that darkness – as our Lord said.

It seems to me that the sin of the Church has to be heinous and protracted before this happens – before the lampstand is removed from its place.

The grace of the Lord is deep, He is long-suffering and desires all to repent….indeed far more than we can imagine.

But yet, there comes a time when the lampstand is removed and then, well then, a dark lighthouse is a horrible thing indeed – the spirit of the antichrist.

The prayer therefore is on the mercy of the Lord, that He would cleanse us and make us fit for purpose, reflecting His light into the world. May we never make trial of His love and faithfulness. May we enter into the inheritance of all that He has for us, and become all that He proposes for us! May His great and glorious Name be praised! Amen!