LIVING IN THE LIGHT

 

LIVING IN THE LIGHT

I John 1:5-7 This is the message he has given us to announce 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 living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin.  NLT

      Here is the message loud and clear: we cannot live as children of God and still live in sin. When we live in fellowship with God we lose the desire to live in sin. It does not mean we will never sin, but it does mean that we will want to not sin more than we do sin. We will grow in our desire to please God and lose our desire to do what doesn't please Him. Anyone who claims to have Christ as their Savior and continues to live in sin without allowing Christ to change their desires is a liar. They may claim all they want about their being a Christian, but in God's eyes, they aren't.

      If you profess to be a child of God and are not living like one, be warned. You must begin to let Christ change you. You must seek Him out and walk away from sin. You must develop the discipline of considering first what God says about things before you attempt to do them. There is no wiggle room here.

      As children of God, our fellowship should be with each other. We should be striving to get our inspiration and guidance from other believers, not the world. We can have friendships with non-Christians, in fact we should have, but we need to make sure we look to godly people to meet our spiritual need for fellowship rather than the world.

      The blood of Christ unites all believers together in unity and love. We are one body. We are all on equal footing at the cross. It is when we stray from the cross that we become self-important and divided. We have no hope of being one apart from Him.

       When we are living in the light we are living in the righteousness of Christ.  Our sins are forgiven and we strive to not let sin back into our hearts.  We separate ourselves from sinful lifestyles.  We not only profess to be children of God, but we also live like we are.

       When we are living in Christ, we are saturated by God’s truth.  We are on a quest to learn more of what God desires for us and wants us to be.  We are given understanding of these things by the Holy Spirit who dwells within us. 

       Living in the light keeps us out of the darkness of sin.