God is light - 1 John 1:5-7

"This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin." (1 John 1:5-7)

This was a profound statement for his day, that God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all. This was not true of the Greek and Roman gods. In there gods there was a lot of darkness. They were not adverse to immorality, outbursts of anger, jealousy, pettiness, and revenge. Their gods committed incest, rape, and lewdness of all kinds. They were moody and easily offended. They also contended one with another for power, position, and erotic affection. To say that they were light would be to slander all that is understood to be good about light. To these people, John was proclaiming a god that was so much higher, in every way, than the gods they knew. Our God is not to be compared to their myriad of gods. "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55:9)

Ours is the one true and good God who is kind and beneficial to all. The people of John's day sought to appease their gods so that they might not act in a malevolent way towards them. You never knew what mood they would be in and when they would bless and when they would curse. However, our God bent low to tell us of His love for us. He is always light, He is always love, and He is always good. We need not fear our God in the same way the Greeks and Romans feared their gods for the nature and character of our God is always the same; it is always light. We have no need to appease our God for He is already gracious towards us. It is merely left for us to receive His love and goodness into our lives.

If God is light, and we are children of our God, then we ought to also be children of light. To call upon God as our Father necessitates us to expel every residue of darkness that remains in our lives. We cannot claim light and walk in darkness at the same time. Those who do lie against the truth and show forth a contradictory message to the world; a message of light in Christ yet darkness in action. To the degree that darkness remains withing us, to the same degree we have not yet been conformed to the truth. To claim otherwise is a lie and a self deception that darkens our whole heart. Jesus said, "If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" (Matthew 6:23)

The key to walking in fellowship with God and with each other is to walk in the light. This does not mean that we must be perfect or must have already been made complete and whole, but we must be honest about who and what we are and we must be willing to bring our "stuff" into the light and to let the light of God shine in the dark areas of our lives. It's like having a cluttered garage whose doors we keep shut because we are ashamed at what is inside. We need to open wide the doors and let the sun shine in. We must become honest about our need to clean our garage and not be ashamed about our need or worry about what God will think because he knows already. Those who walk in darkness, who try to hide their sin and their need, separate themselves from God and others, from the very people who love them and are willing to help them. When facing our sin we often think, "I can do this myself." yet that is the wrong tack to take. Bring it to the light and let God and those who love us help us to walk in the truth so that we might be set free. Sin hidden is death to us. As David said, "When I kept silent about my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long." (Psalms 32:3) Yet sin brought into the light is forgiveness, healing, and life.

David Robison