God is Light

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      5 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. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 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. 8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (NASB)

A comment I heard often around ministers and seminary people is that “a sermon is 3 points and a poem”.  Maybe I will offer that here, but hopefully it will be slightly more than that.

God is light

In verse 5, it says “that God is light”.  I will refrain from my typical science response here, but I would like to talk about light.  In that time period, the sources of light they had were the sun and fire.  They did not have electricity like we do now.  So, their sources of light at night would have been fires, torches, lamps (oil powered candles), and maybe candles.  

An experience that I can relate to with this is camping as a kid.  Now, most of my camping experience bordered on what many would call primitive style.  That is camping in tents.  Cooking over a fire, and at times with a Coleman stove.  I have had breakfast which was cooked in a paper bag over a fire.  Coffee brewed over a fire (yum!).  

That may be why my personal preference for BBQ is charcoal.  

I say all that for this purpose.  I can remember camping and being out wandering around the area.  Then, coming back to the campsite.  As we approached, I could see the camp fire from a good distance.  Fire casts a strong light in the darkness.  Even with a group standing around the fire, you can see the light.  That enables you as a group to experience “being in the light”.  

We should walk in the light

I have been working through 1 John for study, and I have been using a commentary by Karen H. Jobes.  (Brief unpaid commercial: I have the commentary on Kindle, and I love my Kindle app.)  She talks about how John uses the ideas of “light” and “darkness”.  She compares them to lifestyles.  A lifestyle characterized by darkness will look like something devoid of God.  Somebody who willingly indulges in the cares of the world without regard to others.  

A person who walks in the light will, to use a phrase from the Apostle Paul’s writings, embody the fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.).  We should strive to walk in the light.  We should be working to live out the things that Jesus told us to do.  If you want to play reverse psychology with it you can put it this way.  We should strive to not sin against others because it hurts them and because it hurts us.  We sin against ourselves.  That is kind of a twisty way to look at the Golden rule.

We can deceive ourselves

There are times when we can deceive ourselves.  We can convince ourselves that we are walking in the light when we are not.  There is a thought that I have that I want to “offer cautiously”.  If you are having to rationalize an activity that you are engaging in that others consider as sinful, you COULD be deceiving yourself.  

These types of things do not happen overnight.  If you realize as you are reading this that you are in something and have been deceiving yourself and see that you are in darkness, do not despair.  Reach out to someone.  Please.  God is always there.  Just because it is dark around you, it doesn’t mean there isn’t a way out.  Don’t lie to yourself.  Ask God for help.  The enemy will do EVERYTHING within his power to make you feel like God cannot hear you.  God does hear you.

God is omnipresent

Light is always present, whether we realize it or not.  If there isn’t the sun, the moon is there to reflect it’s light.  There is a theological principle about God called “omnipresence”.  In other words, God is everywhere all the time.  With the sun out during the day and the moon to reflect it’s light, then no matter where you are (theoretically) there should be some light.  

Sometimes, we hit struggles in our lives and we are not sure where God is.  I experienced something like that recently.  In some ways, I still am.  The year of 2020 brought some challenges for all of us.  I experienced at least one aspect of that challenge.  I was laid off from my job in April of 2020.  I already had some other personal challenges going on at the time.  The layoff just added insult to injury.  

I knew God was still there…somewhere.  But, I couldn’t feel Him near.  It hurt.  I struggled.  I screamed at God, “Where are You in this?!?!?”  “WHY?!?!?!?!!!!!!!?!?!?!!!!?”  I can remember one day just crying, hurting.  I was pulling at my shirt as if to tear it apart off of my body.  I was in…darkness.  It WAS a dark time for me.  Every once in a while, I would sense God wrap His arms around me and I would weep.  I reached out to my pastor.  He encouraged me to get into counseling.  Over time, I began to share my burdens with others.  My church group and my family were there (even though I wasn’t sure how they would react).  If you have someone with whom you can share those burdens, it helps.

I wish I could write to you and tell you, “Praise God, He pulled me through it and everything is rosy now.”  But, I can’t do that.  God is PULLING me through it.  I am on my third job now since my layoff (if you count Uber Eats, it’s the fourth).  I am still not matching my previous pay.  But, I know God is there.  My point in this little diatribe is that even if you think your problem is too big for God (because I surely did), it isn’t.  And even if you can’t feel Him, He is there. 

Poem 

In the years that we have been homeschooling our son, I was introduced to a poetry form called a “haiku”.  Haiku’s intrigue me.  I googled “Haiku” for the description of the form and I found this:  a haiku is “a Japanese poetic form that consists of three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven in the second, and five in the third.” 

Since it is a poetry form, that means you can write a Haiku about anything, even the Bible.  So, I found a website with a guy who did some about 1 John.  I will provide a link to his website at the bottom.  Here is what I found about chapter one.

“The Life

Walking in the light,

Fellowship that makes us one:

Cleansed from all our sin.”

– from “Kingdom Upgrowth”.

Haikus from I John

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