Passage of the Day: 1st John 1: 5 – 10 … 5 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 yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by 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.
8 If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives.
My Journal for Today: Yesterday we saw that the first element to look for in the assurance of our salvation is a deep and abiding relationship with Christ, a communion of worship and life with God’s Spirit, growing and maturing as we live for God’s glory [see 1st John 1: 3]. Today in our text passage, we look at the second indicator to which the Apostle John exposes to help believers KNOW that they are saved; and this element is the sensitivity to sin.
And in today’s text on the matter, we see one of the most common word pictures used in scripture to describe sin or sinfulness; and that is “darkness” verses “light” (i.e., Godliness, righteousness, or Christlikeness). For support of this, see also Ps 119: 105 and Prov. 6: 23 in the Old Testament. And in addition to today’s text from the NT, the Apostle Paul also wrote about sinfulness verses righteousness, using the dark/light word picture in Romans 7: 14 – 25. And in the Rom. 7 passage we read of Paul personalizing the battle we all have with self verses Savior … the darkness of our own hearts and the light found in our relationship with Christ. And in Rom. 7: 25 you will read of Paul’s recognition, as we read in today’s text, of our need to surrender to the light of Christ. And then all of Romans 8 is the victory story that results when we live in the light of Christ. And from John, in 1st John 1: 9 from today’s passage [a verse you may have memorized], we read of God’s remedy for the believer who is willing to surrender to God [i.e., the Light], recognizing and confessing his/her sinfulness … and that is to be cleansed and brought out of darkness and into God’s light.
Having been in that place of darkness in my past; and having experienced the truth of 1st John 1: 9 and the victory of Romans 8, I firmly believe, with personal witness, that there is no more lonely or forlorn place for a true Christian than to be walking in the darkness brought on by a believer’s selfish choices, taking him/her out of fellowship with Christ and out of the light provided by our Lord. However, the opposite of that is true as well … that a Christian, walking in surrender to God, will experience all the fruit that walking in the Light of Christ affords, which includes a blossoming of all of the fruit of the Spirit (see Gal. 5: 22, 23).
And so, I’d exhort any reader of this journal entry to make Psalm 119: 105 a strong memory verse for your life … praying continually for Christ’s light to shine on your path so that you can walk in His light, following Him as He commands in Luke 9: 23.
My Prayer Today: Thank you for Your light, Lord! Amen
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment