Today John warns us not to deceive ourselves. We are sinners. If we are sinners, then we need the Savior. And if we acknowledge our sinfulness and our need for Him, He is faithful and just to forgive us when we confess our sins to Him.
John, and the other apostles, knew the Lord personally. When John speaks of the Lord, he's sharing things he heard with his own ears and saw with his own eyes. "This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5) If we think anything is wrong with God, the fault is in us, not in Him. We often hear people passing judgment on God, but this is because there is darkness in the human heart. It's true that we don't always understand what God is doing or why He allows certain things to happen. But our lack of understanding doesn't mean that God isn't good. Are we always happy with the choices He makes? No. But by faith the only thing we can do is to trust that if we knew what He knows we would make the same choices. To refuse to serve the God we cannot completely understand is to remain in darkness.
Since the Lord is light, we who belong to Him should be fulfilling the calling of being "the light of the world". (Matthew 5:14) If we are not living in a way that honors the Lord and attracts others to Him, we must ask ourselves whether we have truly given our hearts to Him at all. "If we claim to have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth." (1 John 1:6)
"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." (1 John 1:7) When we walk with someone we are on our way to somewhere. Walking daily with Jesus means we are continually growing in our relationship with Him. It means that He is working to make us more like Him and we are allowing Him to have His way with our lives. We will never be perfectly sinless while we live in these mortal human bodies, so John speaks of the atoning blood of Christ. On the basis of our faith in what Christ did for us on the cross, we can ask for and receive forgiveness. The closer we walk with Christ, the sooner we are going to realize it when we mess up, and the more eager we are going to be to confess our mistakes. This is the evidence of a transformed life---that we can no longer wallow comfortably in sin. If anyone claims to have accepted Christ as Lord and Savior, yet there is no evidence of a transformed life, we must question whether conversion took place at all.
"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8) The most dangerous thing we can do is lie to ourselves in regard to sin. The Lord can't help us if we don't acknowledge our sinfulness. "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners"(1 Timothy 1:15), and if we can't accept and admit we are sinners, we can't come to a saving knowledge of Christ. You've probably heard the expression often used in addiction programs, "The first step is admitting you have a problem." The first step toward a transformed life in Christ is admitting we have a problem. If we can't admit we have a problem, how will we ever accept the solution to our problem? Christ came to save sinners, and if we refuse to admit we are sinners, we are going to refuse Him as our Savior.
But the good news is that mercy is just one step away. When we take that first step and admit to ourselves and to Christ that we have a problem, He is ready and willing to help us. "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9) This mercy is not a one-time thing. He extends saving mercy to us when we come to Him in faith and accept Him as our Savior, and then for the rest of our lives He extends mercy to us when we realize we've made a mistake and ask His forgiveness for our mistake. This doesn't mean we have freedom to sin. Repentance means a deliberate turning away from the thing that is wrong. It means experiencing a genuine sorrow in our hearts over that sin and a true desire to stop committing that sin. There are some sins that grieve us so much that we commit them only once. Then there are sins we struggle with over and over. But if we stay as close to the Lord as we should be, we will never get to the point of feeling comfortable with sin. From the depths of our souls we will say to Him, "God, have mercy on me, a sinner." (Luke 18:13)
The Lord has called us sinners because that is what we are. So if we claim we aren't sinners, we are calling Him a liar. "If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word is not in us." (1 John 1:10) If we claim we are not sinners, the word of God is not in our hearts, for the word of God clearly states that we are sinners. If we are not sinners, why did Christ come to save us? If we are fine just as we are, there was no need for Him to suffer. Claiming we are not sinners is in complete opposition to the gospel message. Therefore, if anyone claims to be sinless, he is denying the very gospel that is capable of saving him.
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