You both hope in his promises, and avoid sin by the light of his word. To avoid conviction and remorse, he will do or omit many things, but it is all with reluctance, and not at all of his own cordial goodwill. God will frown darkness upon his path, and take pains to confound his projects, and blow his schemes to the winds. In a backslidden state, he cannot possess his soul in patience. “No man can walk so long in the Shadow that he cannot come again to the Light.”― Robert Jordan. “What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you so that you may have fellowship with us.” In order to create and nurture deep Christian fellowship you have to talk about who you think Christ is and what he taught. That could be misused to teach that Christians don’t sin anymore. Here is one of the most beautiful paragraphs I have ever read outside the Bible. Oh, how I wish I could get every person to read the sixth sign of grace in Jonathan Edwards’s Treatise Concerning the Religious Affections entitled “Gracious Affections Are Attended with Evangelical Humiliation.” These thirty pages of profound biblical and psychological probing of the heart of the true saint turn most contemporary talk about Christian self-esteem into the cotton candy chatter that it is. God will not share His glory with anyone. But verse 3 would suggest that the “fellowship with one another” in verse 7 refers to fellowship with fellow believers. Consequently, his cares will be multiplied, and come upon him like a deluge. The backslider in heart will be full of his own disgraces. Walk means life. To choose gravel over diamonds you have to be blind. 14. We no longer stay committed to an unforgiving nor unloving attitude because the light won’t tolerate it. “The ambitious man much be studying, and the worldling must be working or contriving, and the sensual, vain person providing himself for vanity, when they should be engaged in the worship of God.” Sin steals the time, attention and affection that we need to maintain our communion with God. You have a precious friend — perhaps even a spouse — you have in common the same desires for God. If he does it, it is because he must, and not because he may. Only those who consistently walk in the light of Christ can enjoy fruitful and loving relationships. But to me it smacks of artificiality. . phos []).The literal contrast between metaphysical good and evil, God and evil forces, believers and unbelievers. But can a Christian ever be too hard on himself as he strives to live up to that calling? Or does it mean that as we walk in the light, the blood of Jesus covers and nullifies our sinning? (1) It refers to the justifying effect of Christ’s shed blood blotting out all our sins and giving us acquittal and eternal acceptance with God. 6. Light always involves the removal of darkness in the unfolding of biblical history and theology. Darkness is full of threat. How is such teaching good news? The vexations of his backslidden life will make him nervous and irritable; his temper will become explosive and uncontrollable. It frustrates your ability to attain your goal. Walk in the Light – Bible Study – Daily Devotionals Our site—Walk in the Light—provides rich devotional resources on various Bible study topics, such as Bible Prophecy, Second Coming of Jesus, and The Rapture, helping you go deeper into the Bible. The fellowship and love that we have for the people of God is revealed as the light shines from within. Our "gods" nowadays are usually celebrities. He is not walking with God. The reason the Son God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. Jesus says in John 5:44, “For you gladly honor each other, but you don’t care about the honor that comes from the one who alone is God.” This does not mean that we are not to respect and recognize people and appreciate the things they have done. Verse 10: “If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” In other words, the claim of sinlessness is not only self-deception; it is also blasphemy. The backslider in heart will be filled with his own lustings. Having been guilty of this infinite folly, the whole course of his backslidden life must be that of a fool, in the Bible sense of the term. Instead of denying our sinfulness, we should confess that it is real and ugly. Which is why secular education is such a mirage of hope in the contemporary wasteland of our culture. He will be anxious about himself, about his business, about his reputation, about everything. Therefore one of the great signs of maturity in Christ is a deep and abiding brokenness for sin. “If we say we have fellowship with God while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another,” i.e., between God and ourselves. “God is light and in him is no darkness at all.” It means that if you draw near to God, you do not find a dark and foreboding truth. John shoots down the first error in verses 6 and 7, and then shoots down the second error in verses 8–10. “If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness we lie and do not live according to the truth.”, Now verse 7 gives the positive side of the application of verse 5. He has everything to care for. If God is light, and in him is no darkness at all, then he is the bright pathway to the fulfillment of all our deepest longings. He must do something to sustain religious institutions, but to do so is a bondage. It is finished in the cross and no more forgiveness is possible. But when the light goes on, he sees that the warm, soft fur is the underbelly of a horrid, man-eating monster; and the hard, cold edge is the sword of the majestic Christ ready to save. And the word of God says that “if we walk in the light as he is in the light . Their willingness to know and do the truth has gone. In the light of God you will not be destroyed by the rattlesnake of sin; you will not fall over the cliff into hell. Last week we saw from verses 3 and 4 that John makes the message of Christ (call it theology, or doctrine) the basis of all significant Christian fellowship. Does God love everyone in the world? First John 2:8–11 give some real clear indications. God is not like that. 16. Now we must look at the clarification in verses 8–10. Such a gospel accounts for how 40 million people can claim to be born again in America at the same time that our moral condition is an all-time low of corruption inside and outside the church. If God opens the eyes of our hearts to see all that, then our desires are captured by the surpassing glory of God over everything that the world has to offer, and we walk in the light as he is in the light.