From the Epistles of John: What will the Light reveal about you?

Good day

When I read the epistle of John, I can sense the love that radiates from John. But this first epistle of his is actually a portrait of God’s character of love and holiness. John succeeded in painting a clear picture of the Lord regarding these characteristics, putting you the reader and believer before this mirror to view yourself in the light of who God is, challenging you to become like Him.

Today we are put before the first of a number of these challenges in this book, a challenge I have failed many times, but God’s grace has pulled me through every time, allowing me to start over again.

We read in 1 John 1:5-7: “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him, there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”

This is a powerful statement and as direct as it possibly could be. Why do you think the Lord is called light? Have you ever experienced the following, or maybe seen it in a movie, or maybe imagined it to happen to you. You are not properly dressed, or maybe not decent, or don’t feel you would like to be seen by others the way you look at that moment. You’re walking in darkness from one point to another and suddenly the area lights up brightly. Embarrassed you desperately search for a place to hide, but find none. You are exposed in the state you are in. How did it feel or do you think it would feel? Did you feel exposed?

As a child, I had a dream. Maybe you had a similar dream for I have heard of a few people who did. I was still in primary school when I once dreamed I was entering the schoolyard and, as I looked down, I realised I have never put on my trousers that day. The bottom part of my body was completely naked. All the children were around me and there was nowhere to hide. I will never forget the embarrassment I experienced in that dream.

We feel exposed and embarrassed when we are not acceptable to people as we perceive it, don’t we? Yet we try to fellowship with the Light of all lights whilst having darkness in our behaviour and values. How exposed do you think our behaviour is to the Lord who is light? Can you hide something from sight in a brightly lit room?

How much behaviour do you try to justify? “God will understand”, “everybody does it”, “it’s not that bad”, and the worst one that I tried was the passage in 1 Corinthians 6:12: “‘All things are permissible for me,’ but not all things are helpful.  ‘All things are permissible for me,’ but I will not be dominated by anything.” Did Satan have me on a leash on this one? Every time I tried to get rid of my pet sins, this passage was used to justify what my flesh enjoyed doing. However, when I looked up this passage just now in the online Bible, called Bible Gateway to quote it to you, I noticed for the first time in the newest version of the NIV that it said: “I have the right to do anything,” you say... and suddenly it made much more sense. We don’t have the permission or the right to do whatever we like, but our sinful nature wants it, as the Corinthians claimed, and therefore we justify our sin.

But God is light and in Him is no darkness at all and neither can darkness survive in His presence. You will never have peace and will always be disciplined if you try to fellowship with the Most High and continue in your sin (Hebrews 12:4-11). We ask ourselves why we do not have peace and get so much trouble. We pretend to love the Lord but do what we like. Darkness cannot abide in the presence of the Light. Jesus said in John 14:21 and 23 that if we disobey Him, we do not love him.

“Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy,” the Lord told Israel in Leviticus 19:2. God has separated Himself to be light, to be perfect, and to accomplish what He set for himself to be and to do, and so should we.

Next time I will look at 1 John 1:7 as well as the kinds of deceptive darkness we walk in that causes us so much trouble.

With love in Jesus

Henry