Do you still remember those life lessons that your parents tried to teach you? Lessons like help others, work hard, be patient, listen to those in authority, play nicely, don’t pout, and think before you speak. Day after day they would do their best to train us into boys and girls that would make them proud. But, then came that fatal day, when as sweet and innocent children we discovered a way to get our parents blood boiling and you could see that steam coming out of their ears as we managed to get under our parents skin and soon they would begin to pull their hair out and they would get that fire in their eyes and shout “I brought you into this world and I can take you out of this world” then we knew it was time to hide because something deep inside us called logic sounded off the alarms and instantly you knew you were in really big trouble if they ever found you. I am sure if we took the time to think about those lessons that our parents tried to install into us we would be very thankful…The Apostle, who is now ninety years old, is writing to a much younger audience. So, the expression “my little children” reveals the love that this seasoned Saint has for these believers. He is not writing to impress us with his wisdom, but to warn us. He is not writing out of condemnation, but out love. His desire is to confront the false teachers who have flooded into the streets of Ephesus and were teaching them a theory called Gnosticism which denied the reality of sin and evil. John was going to challenge their way of thinking from preaching a message that he had received from Jesus. 1 John 1:5-10 John wrote, “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” The Light represents what is good, pure, and holy and the darkness represents what is sin and evil. To say “God is light” means that God is holy and pure and in Him is no hint, no trace, no shadow of darkness. But, just as darkness cannot exist in the presence of light, sin cannot exist in the presence of God. The problem is that we all face those times in our lives when the momentary pleasure is stronger than our desire to please the Father-and then we are back to living in the darkness. It’s as if our Heavenly Father places a “Do Not Trespass” sign over our temptations and like disobedient children we attempt to sneak to the other side with the hopes of never being caught. Dr. Chafer used to say “secret sin down here is open scandal in Heaven.” The reason why we cannot hide in our sin is because His light exposes our darkness. We are brought into this world as sinners and there never comes a time in our lives when we stop sinning-so stop living in the hopes that one day we will improve on our old sin nature!
If you are in the family of God and have sin in your life, God is not going to treat you like you are a sinner outside of Christ. He is going to treat you like a disobedient child and that is why John is going to give us the family rules.
1 John 1:6- If we continue to disobey our Father we cannot have fellowship with Him
1 John 1:7- If we want to have fellowship with our Father stay close to Him
1 John 1:8- If we believe that we have never disobeyed our Father we are fooling ourselves
1 John 1:9 If we have disobeyed our Father, ask Him for forgiveness
1 John 1:10 If we convince ourselves that we have never disobeyed we are not listening to our Father.
When we have been busy being mischievous, we need to step back and see our sinful ways from our Father’s perspective and make it right with Him. We do this by confessing our sins. Confession is seeing our sin from our Father’s point of view point and agreeing with Him that what we did was wrong. No matter what we did, He will not push us away, but instead, because of the death of Jesus Christ, He will remove our sins and draw us closer to Himself!
What do you want to be remembered for? If you could leave behind a legacy, what would you like to be remembered for? Then what is stopping you from trying to achieve that ambition? Who placed that desire in your heart, you or God? Have you ever realized how much of a difference that one life can make? There is no doubt that our time here on earth is short, we have been given a gift called the present, but many fail to live in it. Far, to many Christians are sitting on the sidelines watching the game called life be played out before them, and even though God has invited them to join in-they remain on the sidelines. It is time to join the game, to move from the inactive to the active, to write a new chapter in your life. James wrote “For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.” The author is comparing our lives to either a puff of smoke or one’s breath that appears for a moment in cold air. 1 Chronicles 29:15 says, “Our days on earth are as a shadow” the man after God’s own heart wrote, “For y days are consumed like smoke” and Job wrote, “Oh, remember that life is a breath” After, watching the news and trying to keep updated with everything that is happening in Haiti, we should be reminded to make every second, every hour, and every day count. We count our years as birthdays but God counts our days. Since life is like a vapor, here today and gone tomorrow, we cannot afford to “spend our lives” or just “invest our lives” we must make them count. Don’t just live your life but live it to the fullest-make your life an adventure – after all, that is the way God intended you live to life!
Pastor Paul,
May God continue to bless your life as you remain faithful to Him!
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