Wednesday 31 May 2017

May 31: 1 John 1:5

Key Verse: 1 John 1:5
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.

Devotion:
We accept sin. We live with it. We even sin. We are surrounded by it. We ignore it. You could say we are part of it. One thing we will always find hard to understand is living without sin. We get so used to having sin around that we do accept it as part of our lives. As soon as someone says to us they have not done something, we probably start to think along the lines of “well if they are trying to tell me this, then they must be trying to cover something up”. It is now such an inbred part of society we do wonder how we could ever be accepted by God. Our verse today reminds us God will not accept sin. He cannot accept sin. He is without sin.

When you switch on a light in a dark room, the whole room becomes light. Even the parts where there are shadows have some light in them because of reflections. Once the light is switched on, there is no real way of hiding from it. When God's light shines, there are no shadows. God's all-encompassing light will fill any dark space you care to mention... but only if He is invited in to illuminate the place. Unlike the thief in the night who is willing to break in and use his subterfuge, God will not break in when not invited.

The thief will come in unannounced and use his torch to throw a bit of light on something but as soon as he loses interest in what he is looking at, the light is taken away with him. With God, that light comes to stay and will never be shut off. We may try to hide the light in a box so we can use our own methods of subterfuge to gain our own wicked ways, but the fact is that light has gone nowhere – it is still there. If we truly accept Christ into our lives, we are saying we want His pure light in our lives. As soon as we say so, His light is going to start shining from us. We will not be able to hide it... no matter how much we try to hide it in our box, the box will always let out some light. God wants us to allow His light to shine strongly so others will be able to see their way to Him too. He does not want us to try and hide it!

Points to Ponder:
Have you always been able to choose the right things?

With all the truth before you, will you choose the right things?