The Truth about Relationships amid a Pandemic!
Most people understand that the important things in life are not things at all – they are the relationships we have.
God has put a desire for relationship in every one of us, a desire He intended to be met with relationships with other people, but most of all, to be met by a relationship with Him.
In the remarkable letter, of 1 John, he tells us the truth about relationships – and shows us how to have relationships that are real, for both now and eternity.
John began his letter with the beginning – the eternal God, who was before all things. He told us that this God was physically manifested, and that he and others could testify to this as eyewitnesses. He told us that this God is the Word of life, the Logos. He told us that this God is distinct from the person of God the Father.
He told us that we may have fellowship with this God, and that we are often introduced into this fellowship with God by the fellowship of God’s people. He told us that this eternally existent God, the Word of Life, who was physically present with the disciples and others (and present for fellowship), is God the Son, named Jesus Christ. He told us that fellowship with Jesus leads to a life lived in fullness of joy.
In these verses, John gave us enough to live our whole Christian life on. John now reveals to us that this is God's message and “His” claim to all authority. John isn’t making this up; these are not his own personal opinions or ideas about God.
What John will tell us about God is what God has told us about Himself.
We can’t be confident in our own opinions or ideas about God unless they are genuinely founded on what God has said about Himself.
1 John begins with the center of relationship: Jesus Christ
"This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that...God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."
Light, by definition has no darkness at all in it; for there to be darkness, there must be an absence of light. If we say that we have fellowship with God, and walk in darkness, we lie, and that is not the truth! God has no darkness at all! Therefore, if one claims to be in fellowship with God (a relationship of common relation, interest, and sharing), yet does walk in darkness, it is not a truthful claim! The issue here is fellowship, not salvation. The Christian who temporarily walks in darkness is still saved, but not in fellowship with God.
But if we walk in the light, as God does, we have "fellowship" one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
If 1 John said “that is a lie,” it means in terms of things being true or being lies. John, through the word of God, sees things much more clearly than our sophisticated age does, which doesn’t want to see anything in black or white, but everything in a pale shade of gray.
In 2004, the governor of the state of New Jersey was caught in a scandal. Though he was a married man with children, he was also having a sexual relationship with a man. At the press conference he held to admit this, he began by saying: “My truth is that I am a gay American.” Those were very carefully chosen words: “My truth.”
In the thinking of the world today—”I have my truth and you have your truth”...But Jesus said, “I am the truth” and the Bible clearly tells us of a truth that is greater than any individual’s feeling about it. If there is a problem with our fellowship with God, it is our fault. It is not the fault of God because there is no sin or darkness in Him at all.
Any approach to relationship with God that assumes, or even implies, that God might be wrong, and perhaps must be forgiven by us, is at its root, blasphemous and directly contradicts what the scripture clearly states.
The message here, is that a walk in the light is possible.
We know that on this side of eternity, sinless perfection is not possible. Yet we can still walk in the light, it does not mean perfect obedience. The Christian life is described as walking, which implies activity.
Christian life feeds upon contemplation, but it displays itself in action. “Walking” implies action, continuity, and progress. Since God is active and walking…if you have fellowship with Him you will also be active and walking.
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have "not sinned", we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. 1 John first deals with this false claim to fellowship. Based upon this, we understand that it is possible for some to claim a relationship with God that they do not have. and for someone to think, they have a relationship with God that they do not have.
Many Christians are not aware of their true condition. They know they are saved, and have experienced conversion and have repented at some time in their life. Yet they do not live in true fellowship with God. They walk in darkness as a pattern of living, not an occasional lapse, but as a lifestyle of darkness.
Since God is light…when we walk in the light as He is in the light, we walk where He is. We are naturally together with Him in fellowship. and consequently, we have fellowship with one another. John wants to make it clear that fellow Christians who walk in the light enjoy fellowship with each other.
If we do not have fellowship with one another, then one party or both parties are not walking in the light. Two Christians who are in right relationship with God will also naturally be in right relationship with each other!
“My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings. Let my words not depart from thine eyes; keep them in the midst of thine heart. For my words are life into those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” Proverbs 4:20-22: