Living In The Light

1 John 1:5-10 This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in Him at all.

So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, His Son, cleanses us from all sin.

If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that His word has no place in our hearts.

In our previous post we looked at the fact that Jesus really was "God With Us" and that is the only reason why we are still celebrating His arrival two thousand years later. In the verses that we are looking at today our focus changes from who Jesus is to who God is and how that should affect the way we live.

John tells us that God is light, most religions can agree with that statement, if you believe in God then you probably agree that He is pure and holy. There isn't any darkness at all in God, He is one hundred percent pure light, he is holy, pure and righteous. Besides being light God also gives us the light, He reveals the light of truth to us, and He gives us the light of salvation.

Does the fact that God is light have any implications for me?

Does it really matter how I live? When Jesus told his followers "You are my friends if you do what I command" He made it clear that there has to be some changes in the way that I live and that obedience is a necessary part of a relationship with Him. (John 15:14)

Romans 6:16-18 Don't you realize that you become the slave of whatever you choose to obey? You can be a slave to sin, which leads to death, or you can choose to obey God, which leads to righteous living. Thank God! Once you were slaves of sin, but now you wholeheartedly obey this teaching we have given you. Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.

We all have to decide who is going to be in control. We don't like the idea of being a slave but that's what the apostle Paul tells us we are. We don't get to change the fact that we are slaves but we do get to choose who we will be enslaved to.

Fellowship with God and living to please him is always characterized by walking in the light. We know that we have been saved for all of eternity but we can choose to step away from the light and stumble around in the dark when we refuse to live by God's Word.

I cannot live in the dark and expect it to be beneficial to me and I should not expect to enjoy God's company. I need to decide that my morals, my attitudes and my convictions are all going to be dictated by God's Word.

Light Of The World

There has been nothing but darkness in the land, the Bible and world history tell us that when Jesus came to our world it was a very dark time. The world was in turmoil as various conquering empires came and then they fell as they became the conquered.

After the Babylonian captivity the Jews had to deal with the Persians and the Greeks and finally the Romans came along. Each of these groups brought wars to Israel, changes in their government and attempts to change their religious beliefs.

The Bible tells us that at just the right time Jesus came into our world, I have to wonder if maybe part of it being the right time meant that the world was so dark that surely the people would take notice of the Light and come running to it.

John 12:46  I have come as a light to shine in this dark world, so that all who put their trust in Me will no longer remain in the dark.

But man has an appetite for darkness and his passions will push him further and further into the dark as he continues to look for what he is missing. We keep looking for the good life where it cannot be found. Even if we say that we hate the dark we still have a carnal desire to plunge deeper and deeper into the blackness to find our own answers.

Light is a characteristic of God that the Messiah was predicted to have. (Isaiah 9:2, 49:6, 60:1) Everybody in the temple knew that Jesus was telling them that he is the Messiah, they know that the light of the Messiah is what their hopes have been longing for, but this guy doesn't look like a Messiah to them.

Suddenly, in this dark world where immorality, injustice, and sin is glorified, the Great Light appears and it cannot be hidden, Jesus gave light to everyone, too bad that everyone didn't welcome the light.

John 3:19-21 And the judgment is based on this fact: God's light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.

God sent light into our world because we needed the light. He gave us the sun for physical life on this planet and he gave us the Son so that we could have spiritual life.There wasn't any way that we could get out of the dark on our own, out of God's love and mercy he gave us light so that we wouldn't have to live without hope in darkness, misery and death.

I need to love the Light and allow it to expose the things that God wants to change in me. I need to allow the Light to shine through me so that the world can see the truth of the gospel and have the opportunity to see their sin, choose to repent and live in the light.