There Is No Darkness In Pure Light

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ⁶ If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. ⁷ But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.

Glorious Glow

God is perfect.  His light is without defect.  It is when we look through the lens of our own version of morality that we ascribe any wrongdoing to God.  When confronted with the facts, most people object to God based on morality, for God provides us with overwhelming proof of Himself and His Righteousness.

We cannot begin to understand God until we come to the realization that God is perfect.  It is only in the lens of perfection that God is able to be seen clearly.  John tells us that there is no darkness in Him at all.  Any perceived darkness that we think we see in God is our own darkness clouding the truth about God’s light.  God allows this to occur for many reasons:

• The hearts of the Jews were hardened to allow them to be jealous of Gentile Christians.
• We have refused to love the light, and God gives us over to darkness.
• Pain and suffering obscure our ability to see clearly.

Darkness of Deception

The bane of the church are those who claim to know Christ, and claim the title of Christian, yet refuse to live in the light.  When we walk in darkness, we cannot claim fellowship with the light.  It is like water and oil.  The two are immiscible – they won’t mix properly.  Shake them as together as much as you want, but the oil immediately separates from the water and floats on top.

We cannot claim to be light and hide the very thing that we claim to be.  When we obscure the light of God, we suppress the truth with wickedness.  This is like a person camping and trying to start a fire by pouring water over the dry wood.  Any sane person would be horrified at the results, and counsel the person to stop sabotaging their efforts.  Sin effectively sabotages our witness for it extinguishes any claim to light that we have.

There are wheat and chaff.  The wheat falls to the ground during the threshing, and the chaff blows away in the wind.  We experience trials to perfect our faith and endurance, so that as the mighty winds of difficulty come upon us, we will fall to the ground as kernels of grain rather than be blown away by the pressures of our trials.  And it is during persecution that there is a great separation of the wheat from the chaff.

The world watches us in hopeful expectation.  Some watch in the hopes that we will fail. When we do, they feel justified in their own sinful behavior.  Others watch in the hopes that what we say is true so that they can believe that it is really true and embrace the truth.  The way in which we conduct ourselves will impact many others.  Walking in darkness is guaranteed to have negative results, not only for us, but also for those who watch us.

Relationship in Radiance

When we walk in the light, we experience fellowship with each other and with God.  God intended for us to be with Him from the very beginning.  It wasn’t until Adam sinned that there was a separation between God and man.  Walking in the light is to enjoy the character and company of those who are like us and in the presence of God.

When we walk in the light, we are sanctified.  The light exposes our deeds of darkness, and gives us the opportunity to turn from darkness and turn towards the light.  The more we turn towards the light, the sweeter the fellowship is between us, God, and the ones who choose the light.  The blood of Christ is able to wash away our sins.  We can only do that when we turn from darkness and head towards the light.

A Qualifying Question

Let’s ask a question:  Are we allowing the light of God to penetrate and expose any darkness in our ways?

A short prayer of preparation:

Father in Heaven, You are pure light, and there is no darkness within You.  You are perfect, and do not change like shifting shadows.  In all things, You are holy and righteous.  My ways are not Your ways, and my thoughts are not Your thoughts.  Help me, Father, to align my heart to Yours, that I would better understand Your ways and Your thoughts.  Purify me of all darkness that is within me.  Cleanse me of my unrighteousness.  Peel back the layers of darkness and deception that have infiltrated my life through the world, the flesh, and the devil.  Father, help me to turn to You at all times.  Guard and guide me so that I may walk in the way everlasting.  Help me to be a beacon of light on a hill, that it would lead others to You.  This I ask in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Want more?  Why not try A. B. Simpson or A. W. Tozer?