Saturday, July 15, 2017

Eternal Life, part 3

[This is part three on a series regarding Eternal Life. We have found so far that God gives us His own Nature, called Eternal Life or Love. This message will be about the fact that God is light and that we have that light in us.]

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5)

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light, for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth." Ephesians 5:8-9

These two verses tell us a lot about God and lot about being a new creation in Christ. We know that God is pure light, spiritual light and that there is no darkness in Him. Light is goodness and righteousness and truth; darkness is evil and sin and error.

We were darkness. Now we are light. Goodness and righteousness and truth have been put within us. We are born of the God who is Light. "For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ." (2 Corinthians 4:6) God Himself has shown in our hearts.

We have the light of God in us. It is up to us to walk in that light. "Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path." God's Word is a light to us. As he reveals His Word to our hearts, we are able to walk in the light of it. If we choose not to, then we will walk in darkness, not light. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." (1 John 1:6-7) This verse very clearly states that we must walk in the light that we have.

If we walk in the light that we have, then we have fellowship with God and with one another. If we walk in the light that we have , then we have automatic cleansing from that sin we don't yet have light on. We don't know everything, so there are sins in our lives that we are unaware of. I don't know about you, but I used to do and say some things that were wrong, but I didn't know they were wrong. Yet I was still in fellowship with God. Once God made me aware of those things, I repented and walk in this new light that I had. And that is something that we must do continually throughout our lives. We have keep learning and growing and walk in the light. If we walk in the light we have, God will give us more light to walk in. It seems that just when I think I am doing pretty well and have it all together, that's when God begins to bring more light and I have to conquer something else in my life. That's with God's help, of course.

This leads us to another question. Can I be sure I am actually hearing from God? You can if you are born of Him. "They are from the world; therefore they speak as from the world, and the world listens to them. We are from God; he who knows God listens to us; he who is not from God does not listen to us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." There is a Spirit of truth and a spirit of error. Since we are "from God", in other words, born of God, we know the truth when it comes out. Jesus said, "My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give eternal life to them." Since we have in us God's Nature, Eternal Life, we can hear His voice. The sheep know the Shepherd's voice. They follow Him.

So, by having God's Nature in us, we can hear Him and understand Him and walk in the light - in goodness, righteousness and truth.

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