How to Be a Strong Christian, Part 1: Walking in the Light
“This is the message we have heard fromHim and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all” (1John 1:5).
Even in a well-lit room, there are shadows.Outside it is brighter, but there is darkness out there, too. AsI look out the window from my desk, I see an apple tree with six inches of snowon each branch. That tree is “white as snow,” but even it is in darknessbecause the sky is overcast. David prayed in Psalm 51:7, “Cleanse me withhyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.” God is light, and in Himthere is no darkness at all.
“But if we walk in thelight, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and theblood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 John 1:7). Theword purifies means “keeps oncleansing.” It is a continuous washing. Walking in the light means that as soonas you sin, you are aware of it, you confess it, and it gets cleansed. Theresult? We have fellowship with one another. Walking in the light does not meannever sinning, but it does mean that obedience is your normal state of being.
“We proclaim to you what we have seenand heard so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship iswith the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ” (1 John 1:3). When we arewalking in the light, we also have fellowship with God.
The forgiveness you received from Christat your salvation has set you free from sin and guilt. Now your goal is to stayfree. That means staying cleansed from sin; and in order to confess and getthat cleansing, you need to know when you have sinned. You are most likely to noticeyour sin when you are in the light.
“In the year that KingUzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and thetrain of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with sixwings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered theirfeet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy,holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’ Atthe sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple wasfilled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘Iam ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of uncleanlips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.’ Thenone of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had takenwith tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouthand said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and yoursin atoned for” (Isa. 6:1-7).
In the presence of complete light,Isaiah saw his sinfulness, confessed, and was cleansed immediately.
How do you walk in the light? First, confess every sin to God as soon as you areaware of it. “If we confess our sins, he is faithful andjust and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1John 1:9). God forgives the sins we confess to Him, and He forgives them rightaway. This cleanses us whiter than snow and gets us back into the light.
Often, we sin for a while, get clean,sin for a while, get clean, sin for a while… That is the method of the averageChristian. That is not walking in the light! Walking in the light continuallycleanses. When we make a habit of keeping short accounts with God, it becomesmore natural to be obedient. When we disobey, we are brought up short rightaway, and the sin gets cleansed right away.
The Scripture says, “Lighthas come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light becausetheir deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates thelight, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will beexposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into thelight, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done inthe sight of God” (John 3:19-21). When you walk in the light, you are asking to be reproved. Some children doeverything to hide what they have done wrong. Others do everything to getcaught. They want to be corrected. God wants us to be the kind of people who want to get caught.
The trouble is that when you are in sin,you won’t want to come to the light. The solution? Program yourself ahead oftime for what you will do when you get into sin.
Suppose I am in flight training, andthere’s a red handle in the cockpit marked EjectButton. I don’t practice pulling the red handle. But I program my head sothat if the wrong lights go on or there’s smoke in the cockpit, I don’t need tostop and debate with myself about what to do. I pull the red handle! I amtrained to eject in certain situations.
When things are going well, programyourself to say, “Turn to the light; turn to the light; turn to the light.”When something goes wrong, that training will tell you to turn back to God.
(To be continued October 29...)
