Wednesday, December
27, 2017
We proclaim to you the one who existed from the beginning, whom
we have heard and seen. We saw him with
our own eyes and touched him with our own hands. He is the Word of life. This
one who is life itself was revealed to us, and we have seen him. And now we testify and proclaim to you that he
is the one who is eternal life. He was
with the Father, and then he was revealed to us. We
proclaim to you what we ourselves have actually seen and heard so that you may
have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with
his Son, Jesus Christ. We are writing these things so that
you may fully share our joy. 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.
1 John 1:1-9(NLT)
The Apostle John has a way of repeating himself. No less than five times in the opening few
sentences he restates the case that Jesus is eternal, having existed in the
fellowship of the Father in Heaven before coming to earth to bring eternal life
to all who believe. But that repetition
is just fine with me; I want him to leave no doubt about his message. And John’s purpose is just that; his mission
is to let the truth of who Christ really is, and what He came to do, create a
fellowship that is fully developed, out in the light, stuffed with joy, and
operating in nothing less than truth – eternal, joyful, life-giving truth!
The fellowship of which John preached takes us back to the original state
of creation, when God made everything and could say with a straight face that
it was good…very good! That restoration
of relationship is two-fold:
1. Fellowship
with God
John says God maintains that it is important to live in the light (truth). There is no sense that light and darkness can
ever live together. Darkness, of course,
represents the lie that there is any genuine life apart from God. The closer you get to light the more darkness
has to dispel. A relationship, or
fellowship with God requires coming close.
When you come close to God it’s all truth, nothing but the truth, so
help you….
2. Fellowship
with all creation
Think of a triangle with darkness at the bottom and blinding light at the
top. Humankind in a fallen creation is
in the dark, stumbling around in anger, lies, frustration…death. As we turn towards the top of the triangle
there is God, light, acceptance, truth, contentment and life…eternal. John tells us that we are base-dwellers,
attempting to survive and make a home at the base of the triangle; that leaves
us with nowhere to go. But if we confess
our sins, admit to the darkness within, God invites us into the light.
Not being sure you deserve living in God’s light is a really good first
step towards the truth John was talking about.
As a young boy I doubted God could ever want somebody like me. I wasn’t like those good people I saw in
church. I did and thought things that
made me ashamed to even think of Russell and God in the same room. I wasn’t one of the good ones – I botched relationships, did wrong stuff,
hated myself and everyone around me. I
felt like I left a stain wherever I walked.
Then the truth of God’s love opened my heart and I began to see that
Jesus left the perfection of Heaven to come and redeem me, and you, and the
relationship we could have between us and Him…and us with each other. God wanted nothing more than to heal our
broken love affair with darkness. He
wanted to take us back to the time when there was nothing but TRUTH!
For You
Today
The
celebration of the manger was two nights ago; yet it is an ongoing celebration
that lasts not just for 12 days…it lasts an eternity!
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