If we walk
in the light as He is in the light . . . the blood of Jesus Christ His Son
cleanses us from all sin —1 John 1:7
Up until the Holy
Spirit stepped in to help me understand how I was to walk in the light, all I
had was the model that I learned from my previous Church. Like Oswald mentioned in March 16th’s
devotion “For many of us, walking in the light means walking according to
the standards we have set up for another person. The deadliest attitude of the
Pharisees that we exhibit today is not hypocrisy but that which comes from
unconsciously living a lie” This is so powerful in so many ways that I do
not even want to start unravelling it. Even those four tiny words “unconsciously
living a lie” we do not have any idea how powerful and how they have merged
in our Christian walk like leaven in the dough. In the meantime we are not even
aware that the leaven of the Pharisees has found its way into our lives. So,
unconsciously, we live this life where we cherish the lies as our truth and we
stand on it so proudly, totally clueless.
I found it rather
peculiar that to learn to live in the light of God that you have to first be
able to withstand that light on you, in your actions and in your heart. This is
not easy. When it comes to God, all of us like Adam and Eve, all we want is to
hide away from Him. This is not even something the Holy Spirit can do for you. No, He cannot step in the light in your place.
When you are summoned to walk into the light, the Holy Spirit can coach you up
until it is time to step into the light. Because as you step into the light,
you are dealing with God’s judgement of you, as you stand there you have the
awareness of your nakedness before God, nothing is hidden and nowhere to hide.
It is scary, paralyzing, and shameful to be so exposed before Him. Imagine Adam and Eve only had one sin yet they
needed to hide away from God’s eyes. Imagine now when you have a legion of sin
within how hard it is to be in His presence.
Right before you
step into His light you can completely see the difference between what you
thought was the light you have been walking so far and God’s real light. It is
amazing to see the contrast because our light compares like murky water to God’s. The big difference lies in the fact that we
have a faulty understanding of the meaning of this doctrine. What we call
walking in the light, is either made up of the light of our own conscience, our
own understanding of the Scriptures and our own standards.
Walking in the light goes way deeper than saying
“your word is a lamp unto my feet. To get the full picture of our walk in the
light we have to understand, and know how is God in the light? What does it
mean to Him? If you are used to your basic walk and you are satisfied with
yourself, you might say to me that you do not see the need to go deeper and
perhaps you might even go as far as believing that I am complicating your life.
But, the truth is, His word is clear “If we are to walk in the Light as He is in the Light” We are called to be in the light like Him, His way, by His
standards, His hatred for sin, His transparency, His love, His fellowship, His
holiness, His need for purity, the need to be truly separated from evil and all
that pertains to His standards alone and not ours. In Him, there is no holding back, nothing hidden
from the light, in Him there is no darkness and He delights in the truth.
God has a
passionate hatred for sin and until we can see it and grasp it His way, until
we can understand in unison with God, not just on the surface or through lip
service but through who we have become in Him, we can see and taste and agree
with His abhorrence for sin, then we are nowhere close to living in the light of God.
Not only God is light and He is so radiant that darkness disappears wherever He
is, but we ought to think about living in the light as a lifestyle. It is a
lifestyle that goes beyond words, where you have no agenda of your own, nothing
up your sleeves and you do not care if you actually can find loopholes in His
Word, because you have taken up His agenda and you find delight in His desires
for your life. It is a lifestyle where we basically find out that we are
actually living out Romans 13:14 where we are clothed with Jesus-Christ our
Lord. When you truly put on Christ, you find there is no room to gratify the desires
of the flesh. The meaning of gratifying the desires of the flesh here simply
refers to a sinful state where you are opposing the Holy Spirit.
I find that there
is nothing like putting on and wrapping yourself in Christ to help you live out
what Paul said in Philippians 1:21 “ for me to live is Christ and to die is
gain” As you put on Christ, and dancing
in oneness and joy with Him, it makes you realize the depth of your limitations
in the flesh. You have no idea what happen but somehow you sin. You ask
yourself how did I get out of this precious fellowship? While you stand there
with no answer, you feel like a child with dirty feet standing in the front
door, you cannot come back in, unless you take your dirty shoes off and clean
those feet. While you are standing there to be cleansed by His blood to merge
in the fellowship again, you can see the contrast in your sinful state and God
in His purest form. You don’t even need Him to tell you that you are dirty, you
know it. This realization makes more real living in expectancy of the day you
will not have to live separated from Him again and again because of sin. Oh! I wish all of us would long for that day.
Blessings to all of you! I am so grateful that my readership has catapulted in a way that I cannot explain. I am grateful to you all. Let's keep going forward toward Him, let's not look back because it is not worth it. Our God is all that we need. No matter what is going on in your life right now, in Him we are more than conquerors. He is real, he is love and He only wants what is good for us. Allow Him to get the work done in you.
To all my kindred brothers and sisters out there, I love you with His Agape love.
Take good care and love others even when you are not loved back and do not allow bitterness to touch your heart at all.
