1 John 1 -- A Liar!?

We now move from the Gospel of John to the letters from John. Theories abound on if it is the writer of the Gospel, or another John, or even someone else all together. As far as I am concerned, who really cares. What matters more is the words that have been preserved. Truth is truth no matter who pens it.

He in the opening of this letter we find the writer jumps right in, making it clear that to walk with God is to walk in the ways of light and not darkness. At times the passage runs the risk of sounding a little new age with all the light and dark talk. Basically it boils down to call us to live a life of righteousness. More specifically, if we are in Christ, we must live differently than we did when we had not realized Christ's presence in our lives.

Then we get to the human struggle. No matter how hard we try, perfection eludes us. There is great hope of perfection, yet the daily practice of life finds us short of the goal. So what are we to do? Do we ignore it? Do we simply accept it as a part of the human condition? Scriptures would tell us to confess it. If we were able to life a life of perfect righteousness, without the grace and work of God, then Jesus is pointless. More than that if we pretend we can live without sin in our lives, Jesus is a liar.

So if we are going to have sin in our lives and that is one of the main reasons Jesus came, then we should just accept it and celebrate forgiveness and redemption through Christ. So close but not quite. We should celebrate forgiveness and redemption through Christ. However, we must not simply accept the sin and our life. Yes Jesus atoned for our sin at the cross. Jesus also called us to righteous living well before the cross came into play. While the issue of sin will be ever present, we are not to disregard it for the sake of Jesus Christ. To honor the work of Christ would be to live our lives in the pattern that was shown to us. This means working to ruthlessly eliminate sin from our lives.

The only way to perfection is through Jesus Christ. Without his life, death and resurrection, we would all be lost for eternity. This however does not give us permission to ignore the things that separate us from God.