“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” (1 John 1:6).
Notice it says, “Practice the truth.” Therefore, we can also say “Practice lies.” Revelation 22:15 says, “But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie.” The list of destruction is heavy and yet it includes “Practices a lie.” It’s the lies we believe that puts us in this list. We think everything we believe is the truth or else we wouldn’t believe it. God has plainly broadcast His thoughts and His laws. (Yes, we have laws in the New Testament such as the law of love and the law of faith.) When we don’t take the time to compare our beliefs with the Word of God and therefore change our beliefs to align with His, then we are walking in darkness, even though we may think we are in the light.
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“This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all,” (1 John 1:5).
Light means to make fire or illumination manifest in the widest sense. It comes from a root word that means to express one’s thoughts. Darkness means to be in shadow, obscure, to be in ignorance and all the definitions of darkness lead to destruction and death. God is not in shadow. He does not hide His thoughts. We can read His word and know exactly what He says and what He plans. However, we have darkness in us when we choose to believe the lies of the devil. We can have truth in our spirit and lies in our soul. These two struggle against each other. We must replace the darkness in our souls with the light flowing through our spirits. “And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.” (1 John 1:4)
Our joy. How can we have full joy by the things that John writes? It really is simple. We choose to believe that the things written in the Bible are true and we receive them in our own spirit as being true for us, personally. When we read all Jesus has done for us through the sacrifice of His body and His blood, the magnitude of His gift is over-whelming. As we assimilate this magnificent gift into our understanding and choose to believe even what we don’t yet understand, we can’t help but shout for joy. He bought us back from the enemy! Satan owned us, even if we felt completely in control of our lives, we belonged to Satan and Jesus paid the purchase price to get us back. The Blood of Jesus pays for our healing, our prosperity, our security, our peace, our redemption and the list goes on! “that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3).
The most amazing thing about all this, for me anyway, is that God considers Himself to be our Father and He considers His equally mighty Son to be our brother. The Two of them want a close knit, loving family relationship with us. We can search our souls and look down at our bodies and think, “They want to be close to me?” But that’s why John is writing this letter! He wants to impress upon us that family membership is available to us with both the Father and the Son: intimate communion with God who wants us to call Him, Daddy, and deep friendship with a Big Brother who defeats the big bullies in our lives. "The life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us—" (1 John 1:2).
Jesus was born as a human baby, even though He was an eternal being. The angel who visited Mary and announced that she would give birth to the Son of God told her she would become pregnant by the Holy Spirit of God coming upon her. That does not mean that Mary had sex with God Almighty. John explains that impregnation to us in his bigger book, The Gospel of John, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14). Jesus was conceived by God planting the Word in Mary’s womb because the Word of God is creative power and it creates whatever God wants, wherever God wants it, whenever God wants it. Our universe is composed of atoms and every atom has a quark, an element of sound. Therefore, when God speaks, every atom hears His voice and does His will exactly. |
Marty
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