IN THE LIGHT
THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN
CHAPTER 1
Welcome back to
Daily Bread! This is the first in a series of three letters written by the
apostle John that are in the New Testament. If you’ve read the Gospel
according to John, you know that he’s a writer that appeals to your
emotions. He is very spiritual, and you can sense his desire to make you
feel what he feels.
In this first
letter, he begins, talking about Jesus. You’ll notice that he refers to
Jesus as the "Word" of God, just as he did in the very beginning of the
Gospel of John. He also stresses, that Jesus existed from the very beginning
with God, and later on in his epistle, he clarifies further, that the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are truly one.
JESUS
who was from the beginning,
who we have heard,
who we have seen with our eyes,
who we have looked upon,
and our hands have handled,
of the Word of life;
(For the life was made known, and we have seen it, and
testify, and show to you that eternal life,
which was with the Father, and was shown to us;)
That which we have seen and heard
we declare to you,
so you also may have fellowship with us
and truly our fellowship is with the Father,
And with His Son Jesus Christ.
And these things we write to you, that your joy may be
complete.
This, then, is the
message which we have heard of Him, and declare to you, that God is light,
and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with
Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not (speak) the truth: But if we
walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with
another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. (John
8:12)
If we say that we
have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess
our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a
liar, and His word is not in us.
God is Light and Light = Truth
When you turn off
the light, you can imagine all kinds of things that aren’t really there. But
turn the light on, and it’s very clear to you, that what you imagined isn’t
really there at all, it wasn’t true. When we sin, we’re turning off the
light. We can feel our distance from the Lord (the light). It’s the darndest
thing, but the world con-vinces you to sin. Immediately you can feel that
you’ve fallen into darkness. You know, that empty, thick, heavy, horrible
feeling. Here’s the aggravating thing about sin; you even know that what
you’re doing is wrong, and you do it anyway. If you didn’t know it was
wrong, then, it wouldn’t be sin. Now, you’ve knowingly, voluntarily, walked
right out into the darkness, where you’ve been thousands of times before,
and all you want to do is be back in the light again. You wanna know the
curious thing about it all? You’re gonna do it again. John says, if you deny
that, you make God a liar. Ouch. Okay, you’re feeling about as low as you
can feel now, but you’re waiting for the good news, right?
IF ...
We confess our
sins, God just flat out forgives us, and cleanses us from ALL
unrighteousness. That’s right. He just reaches out His loving, comforting,
forgiving hand, and pulls you up out of that deep, DARK, ugly mess
you’re in, and it’s all gone in His eyes. What about other people? Yes,
there will be people who don’t forgive you, but those people don’t
understand what you’ve learned about sin and they’re walking in darkness
themselves. You just read what John said, But if we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood
of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. Fellowship is a
state of being in harmony, and that would mean that forgiveness is mandatory
if you’re a child of the light. So if you’re worried that someone knows
about what sin(s) you’ve committed, and that they look down on you for them,
you may want to remind yourself that God has forgiven you, and that’s about
all you have to worry about. Remember this, the world cannot provide the
light that it takes you out of, only God can. So once you’ve found yourself
in a dark corner, there’s only one way out, and that is to ask your Father
for the Grace that
only He can give you.
Guess what. You
can confess your sins to Him daily if you need to. You don’t have to retain
your sin until a certain day and time of the week, and you don’t have to
tell a minister or a priest, just go straight to God.
David said, in
Psalm 32:5:
I acknowledged my sin unto thee,
and my iniquity have I not hid.
I said, I will confess my transgressions
unto the Lord;
and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin.
Go straight to the
source. When you’re in the dark, you walk over to the light switch and you
turn it on. Let me ask, who’s forgiveness are you in need of, anyway? Any
given moment is the perfect time to confess your sins to God. In fact, each
moment that you don’t confess, it’s kind of like you’re trying to keep it a
secret from Him.
You can sense when
you’re about to step into the darkness again, you can just feel it. That’s
when satan and his friends are saying to one another, Watch what I can make
him/her do. Then when you do it, and you’re stumbling around in the darkness
again, they’re giving each other high fives, and waiting in line to tell God
what you’ve done now. Yes, that's right. The Bible says that satan waits in
line to accuse us night and day for our sins. (Revelation
12:10 and Job
2:1-5) It always turns out better when you beat satan to the punch and
confess your sins. Wouldn’t it be better if, when satan reaches the front of
the line and tattles on you, God says to satan ... I already know, he/she
told me, and I have forgiven them . . . NEXT!
While we’re on the
subject of confessing, there’s something that should be discussed. Let’s say
you committed a sin. You slip into that all too familiar darkness that John
described for us and you go off to your private place (Matthew
6:6) kneel down and say ... Dear Father, please forgive me, BUT the sin
was so appealing and I haven’t sinned in three weeks, and I forgot and
that's why I did it.
Friend, that’s not
a confession at all. That is just giving excuses as to why you think it’s
okay that you did what you did. You may not want to use the word, BUT,
at all in your confessions. It may be a more sincere request for forgiveness
if you simply, from your heart, said, God, I have sinned, and I was wrong,
and I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Amen. Confession is admitting your guilt
and your sincere repentance for it. Period. No excuses of why you did it. No
explanations are needed. God knows why. Your job isn’t to con-vince Him that
you had a good excuse. That really defeats the whole purpose of repentance.
Try this. The next
time you feel anything luring you out of the light, look down at your hand.
Imagine God holding it, and His eyes asking you to stay close to Him, and
not to go away again into the darkness. Then enjoy the fellowship of being
in the light with Him. What about that spare time you’re gonna gain by not
having to wallow in the darkness? Maybe you can do something cool for God
during those times, like fellowship with Him or share TRUTH with another for
the cause!
As you walk in the
light, you will regularly confess your sins to Him, but keep an eye
out for the things that most frequently lure people into the darkness, and
that is the world and the unrighteous things that it offers, and the
alluring lies of satan and his imps. Those are things that you experience
each and every day. They’re everywhere. But so is the
Holy Spirit.
John’s message in
this first chapter of his first epistle, is that God is light. Light
up your life! Confess your sins, and walk in the light with Him, in the
freedom of TRUTH. In the next chapter, John explains that God is love, too.
Let’s discover what he has to teach us about that, together, in our next
Daily Bread. Until then, may you walk in the light and fellowship of the
Lord, and may His face SHINE upon you!
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