1 John 1:5-7; Psalm 14

1 John 1:5-7
John reports to us what Jesus taught him, and that is that "God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." The contrast of light and darkness is one of the images John liked to use. So let's think about light for a minute. When it's applied to God, it means that He is absolutely holy and without sin. Light also represents absolute truth, and this is applied to God as well.  Darkness represents sin, evil, and falsehood, and we don't find any of this is God's character. We still use these metaphors today. If we speak of bringing something into the light or something coming to light, we mean that the truth is exposed. Or if we say that a movie has a dark message, we mean that it is evil or negative.

And so just this little sentence tells us a lot about God, "God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all." v. 5

Now John turns to us believers. If we say that we have fellowship with God, but go on living in spiritual darkness, we are lying! We should be avoiding the sin and evil that is called darkness in God's Word, and we should be living in the light as God is in the light. When we do this, we have fellowship with God and with one another. This is the way true believers, those who have been cleansed by the blood of Jesus, should strive to live.

Psalm 14
"Only fools say in their hearts, 'There is no God.'" I'm afraid today, we know about people who not only deny God in their hearts, but they boldly deny Him out loud! The Bible calls them fools. But before we begin to feel self-righteous, let's check out vv. 2-3 "The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; he looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God. But no, all have turned away, all have become corrupt. No one does good, not a single one!" This is an undeniable statement that we are ALL sinners by nature. We had nothing good within us, and we did not seek after God. Because of His loving grace, He sought us and found us!

Let's review a short passage from Romans 3, "For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God's glorious standard. Yet God, with undeserved kindness, declares that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when he freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for sin. People are made right with God when they believe that Jesus sacrificed his life, shedding his blood..." vv. 23-25  Many places in the Bible tell us this truth. Here is one more, Romans 5:8 "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." Christ's great sacrifice--the fact that he paid the price for our sins--is offered to us as a free gift. Our only job is to receive it by faith!