This, in essence, is the message we heard from Christ and are passing on to you: God is light, pure light; there’s not a trace of darkness in him.
...if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
... if we admit our sins—make a clean breast of them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. (1:5-9)
The essence of Christ' message, the essence of the Gospel, is that God is pure light, no darkness in him - not a spot, not a shadow, no dimness at all. And if I walk in Him, the Light, I experience a shared life, as I confess my sins and He purges them. This is how the Spirit is defining the Gospel through John - focusing on the essence of His pure light and His invitation to walk with Him in the light that necessitates forgiveness of my sin.
"You exist in My [God's] light. You don't always walk in My light. To walk in My light requires that you pay more attention to your failure to love than to the pain you feel when others fail to love you. When the light of how My Son and I relate in perfect love reveals the dark stains in how you relate, confess your failure to Me, immediately. Agree with me that how you're relating is awful, vile, despicable; that you hate it as I do. When you confess your sins, I will not only forgive the relational failures you see, but I will also clean up everything you have yet to see that keeps you feeling at a distance from Me (1 John 1:5-9). If you understand relational sin, confession will become a daily exercise." (66LL)
Recently, confession and repentance have taken on deeper significance. God lovingly confronted me with the truth that all of my sin is relational sin. If I am walking in His light, then my confession must be more than an identification of unholy or immoral behaviors - it requires a deep repentance borne out of knowing I have relationally sinned against Him, I have chosen to walk in a light I have tried to create for myself and not His light. It's much easier and normal to walk in my relational darkness of self-protection, arranging life to please myself, or just doing what I know. In so doing, I seek to create my own light rather than walking in His.
Who among you fears the Lord and obeys the voice of his servant? Let him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on his God.
Behold, all you who kindle a fire, who equip yourselves with burning torches!
Walk by the light of your fire, and by the torches that you have kindled! This you have from my hand: you shall lie down in torment. (Isaiah 50:10-11, ESV)
John is reminding me of the gospel - that Christ laid down His life for this torment that I deserve so that I can walk in the light of His love.
1 comment:
Oh Staci, Love what you had to say today. I think writing like this is what brings the Beauty of Christ (Psalm 50:2) as we live broken before Him over our relational sin. "Pay more attention to your failure to love than to the pain you feel when others fail to love you." To live by that truth is as hard as pulling chlorine out of pool water. Yet, by His Strength, we can leap those walls. I wept in the depths of emotional pain over the holidays and yet God grasped me and wouldn't let go and gave such peace as I faced my failure to love and moved on to love a little more than I had before. Crabb's writings have offered me a way of living like few people have.
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