2002-01-01
Good Morning Faithful Readers,
Light really matters in our lives, both physical and spiritual. Because of my night blindness, I have such huge respect for people who are blind all the time and who still let spiritual light shine from themselves by the way they live their lives. I used to tutor a blind student when I taught at San Francisco State University. This young man refused to allow his blindness to stop him from being a dedicated student and a fine human being. The number of loyal friends he had was eloquent testimony to that. Perhaps, it is the importance of light that leads me to love the paintings of Thomas Kinkade, who calls himself appropriately, “the Painter of Light.” In his case, both physical and spiritual light can be beautifully perceived by those enjoying his paintings.
Today’s subject is God’s light as revealed in 1 JN 1: 5-10. The striking similarity to the writing on light in the book of John can’t be missed. But, I know enough to know that when God repeats something, it is done with a reason designed to serve His will for us and for our benefit. Let’s look at this passage in two parts. 1 JN 1: 5-7, “Now the message that we have heard from His Son and announce is this: God is light, and there is no darkness at all in Him. If, then, we say that we have fellowship with Him, yet at the same time live in the darkness, we are lying both in our words and in our actions. But if we live in the light-just as He is in the light-then we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, purifies us from every sin.” When I meditate on these words, my very favorite verse from the Scriptures comes to mind. PS 119: 105, “Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light for my path.” It occurred to me that if a physically blind person has deep and abiding faith and experiences God through obeying Him, then he is not really blind at all. Of course, he needs the help of a dog or a cane or another person to get around, but God’s light is in his soul, a light that can shine so that others around him can perceive it. The kind of darkness that comes from evil is pierced by God’s light. That is why it matters so much that we come to faith, live in faith, and share our faith with others, hopefully spreading it. What else could bring such hope into a dark, evil world like the one in which we live?
Because God is omniscient, He can see into the depths of our hearts. He knows when we speak of having faith and then live in sin, we are being hypocrites. There can be no secrets from Him. The only people who live in guilt and mortal fear are the ones who are living this lifestyle and think they can get away with it. Christ made it plain in MT 6: 24, “No one can be a slave of two masters; he will hate one and love the other; he will be loyal to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Throughout the history of Israel’s kings as described in Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles in the Scriptures, we see example after example of kings that tried to rationalize combining pagan idolatry with Judaism. That this strategy was bogus and a failure can be seen from the way each section describing an evil king was begun. That was with words to the effect that he displeased God because he didn’t take down the pagan altars all over the country and destroy them.
It is clear that Jesus lived and taught among mankind to present us with an ideal example of how we should choose to live. God never took away our free agency to make choices, but He presented us with a paradigm after which to pattern ourselves. By sacrificing Christ on the cross the way He did, He made it possible for us choose the lifestyle He wanted for us. [See RO 6: 6].
The author of 1 JN has more for us in 1JN 1: 8-10. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if we confess sins to God, He will keep His promise and do what is right: He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all our wrongdoing. If we say that we have not sinned, we make a liar out of God, and His word is not in us.” RO 10: 9-10, “If you confess that Jesus is Lord and that God raised Him from death, you will be saved. For it is by faith that we are put right with God; it is by our confession that we are saved.” God led Paul to write about the hypocrisy of legalistic Jews in RO 2 and to make the bold statement in RO 2: 29, “Rather, the real Jew is the is the person who is a Jew on the inside, that is whose heart has been circumcised, and this is the work of God’s Spirit, not of the written Law. Such a person receives his praise from God, not from man.” This brings to mind the Parable of the Sower from MT 13: 18-23, which I hope you will read. You will remember that the seeds that fall on the path are snatched away by the evil one. The seeds that fall on the rocky ground welcome God’s message, but don’t stick with it because it isn’t planted firmly in them. The seeds that fall among the thorn bushes are overcome by worries about this life and the love of riches, choking out God’s message. It is only the seeds sown in good soil that hear and understand the message well enough to bear fruit. All of these passages lead us to ask: What is the condition of our faith when we hear God’s message?
If we are leading an honest life of humble obedience to and trust of God, I believe we need never worry about being abandoned by Him when trouble strikes. Even when we have a lapse in judgment as long as we don’t make it a trend, God is a God of second chances when we confess our sin openly and honestly to Him. It is when we sin with a stiff-necked, proud refusal to confess our wrongdoing or we continue to sin even after God makes it known to us the wrong choice we are making, that God righteously has anger toward us. I am greatly bothered by the system of confession and granting absolution that some churches have. I refer here to the system in which a sinner goes to confession and is granted absolution for committing a sin. Then, he feels he can do it again and again for the same sin, because all he has to do is to visit the confessional each time to be forgiven. This situation is what I believe the author is referring to in 1 JN 1: 10 when he says, “If we say that we have not sinned, we make a liar out of God, and His word is not in us.” That’s in the same category with the person who is sinning and refuses to admit it at all.
PRAYER: O Lord, You are a loving Source of forgiveness for those who will come to You, confess their sins, and refuse to keep on committing those sins. You have invited us to have a real and personal relationship with You. You have given us Jesus Christ, the Word, as an ideal after which to pattern our lives. Through His teaching and the teaching of the others in both the OT and NT, You give us guidance to help us deal with temptation and the often difficult job of expunging sin from our lives. You sacrificed Him on the cross, so that we could have salvation through our faith in Him and the choice of whether or not to sin. Your patience with our sometimes feeble attempts to obey You is nothing short of amazing. When we slip, You offer us forgiveness through Christ’s blood, as long as we turn away from the lapse that we have made. Everything You do is such a model of love. You deserve our eternal worship, adoration, praise, and loyalty for just being Who You are. We dedicate ourselves to getting rid of sin in our lives and more closely conforming to the model that Jesus Christ set for us. In Christ’s name, amen.
If you feel loved today, then you understand what is the foundation of the author’s message in 1 JN 1: 5-10. We are so blessed to have the light of the Lord’s love in our lives. We cannot begin to fully appreciate the depth of God’s love for us, because of the limitations of our human perception. God is a Lord of forgiveness, loving guidance, patience, second chances, compassion, righteousness, light, and love for each of us. He wants only what is in our best interests, even though He asks us to sometimes make big changes in our lives which are inconvenient and difficult for us. God wants nothing more than for us to be glorified and live in eternal joy and fellowship with Him. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn