A Harsh Reality: Day 2
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 if we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1st John 1:8-10 (ESV)
John gets real here. He speaks the straight-up truth. It is not always the easiest to hear but the truth always needs to be heard. John just a few verses earlier shares the message of Christ and that is “God is light and in him, there is no darkness at all.” Our God is a holy and just God. He is perfect by all definitions of the word. Because of Christ, we can now have fellowship, a relationship, with God the Father again. We can now walk in communion with our creator once again. However, John is laying out a harsh reality, if we say we walk in the light but practice the opposite are we actually walking with the Lord?
Sin is a harsh reality imputed to us from Adam’s original sin. When Adam sinned it fractured everything. We are now born into sin and born with a sinful nature. The sinful nature means that we are selfish and seek our own pleasure and serve ourselves. Our natural tendency is to play God for ourselves. To judge what is good and evil according to our own pleasure and desire. The confrontation of the gospel is that on this path we are destined for the consequences of our actions. It’s not that a loving God sends sinners to hell, rather being consumed with sin, the sinner walks freely his own way to destruction.
Are you walking in the light? Are you walking in God’s world God’s way? Or have you replaced God with yourself and your desires? If we sit here and say we are spotless ourselves, we lie. If we say we walk in the light, but live our lives hiding in the dark, we lie. The blessing of the gospel is when we have submitted our entire lives before Christ and the Father, he is just to forgive us because of the work of Christ on our behalf. It isn’t what we do for ourselves, but rather what Christ has done for us. Confessing sin allows us to bring that sin into the light and submit it before the forgiveness of Christ. This forgiveness frees us to walk away from sin and continue walking with the Father in the light.
Jesus prays that the Lord would sanctify us in all truth, that His word is truth. Jesus also says that if we love him, we will do what he says. Scripture always speaks of his word being written on our hearts. When we walk in the light and do what Christ has asked of us, we prove that His word has sanctified us and is written on our hearts. We we do the opposite and walk in darkness, we prove ourselves to be a liar. Walking in the light is not to say we are perfect and without sin, rather it is a submission where we admit our sin and allow the Lord to sanctify us through his word.
What sins do you need to confess? Are you walking in the light? How can you move from the dark into the light today? To know his word, you must be in his word.
