Trust in Jesus. Trust in him for his teaching, his redemptive sacrifice, and for his forgiveness of your sin. And walk in the light. This will help keep you from slipping up. But when you do, be honest about your mistakes and mess ups and come to Jesus with them…
8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.
1 My dear children, I am writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous. 2 He himself is the sacrifice that atones for our sins—and not only our sins but the sins of all the world.
1John 1:8-2:2 NLT
Coming into the light, we can fellowship with God and find forgiveness for sin. This was what John was just talking about leading up to verse 8. Then the wheels fell off. You see, people then apparently struggled with the same ideas we struggle with now. Many people do not see that they are sinners.
We are good. We are good enough. On the balance of things, we have more good behaviours and impact than bad behaviour. John says we are fooling ourselves and we are not living in the truth. The truth is that we all fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Not one of us is holy and righteous all of the time.
And when we stumble from the light into the dark areas of living, we can confess our sins to God and Jesus will forgive us and cleanse us. And by the way, saying we don’t sin means that we are calling God a liar. He is the one who identified our sinfulness. He is the one who sent his son to earth to show us how to live and to redeem us from that empty way of life. To say we didn’t need it nullifies the purpose of the incarnation, the death of Jesus, and his resurrection. I don’t think we want to be in that camp.
John wants to help us from sinning in our perspective and in our actions. Having fellowship in the light will do that for us. But when we do sin (not if), we need to know that our advocate before the Father is Jesus himself. Not only is he the one who is righteous all of the time, he also is the sacrifice that atoned for the sins of all the world.
Trust in him. Walk in the light. And be honest about your mistakes and mess ups…
Amen.
Marc Kinna
marckinna 