1 John 1
Bible Passage: I John 1
The Gospel and epistles of John, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”, are the intimate Spirit-inspired writings of one who had heard, had seen with his eyes, had looked upon, and had handled with his own hands, the Word of life. In these books are revealed the range of qualities of the infinite God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
We should appreciate the goodness in totality of the range of qualities of the infinite God, and not pick and choose only those which please our finite understanding. Thus, we should embrace the warmth of Jesus’ love and compassion (John 3:16; 13:1), and at the same time value His judgment and condemnation of sin (John 3:18; 13:27; Mark 14:21).
5 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.
This verse tells us that a key message of the apostles is that God is perfect in goodness. Compared to the debauched ‘gods’ of the people of the world (Greek ‘gods’ war with each other and seduce humans), our God has no darkness at all.
Hence, it is important for us to completely trust and obey God. Doubt in God manifests itself as grumbling in times of distress and greed for pleasure in good times. Because when one doubts in the absolute goodness of God, he wonders if God is too weak to help him. Further along this line of thought, he starts to think that if God is all-powerful and still He does not help, it may be because God is playing a cruel game with his life. And in good times, the same person may question God’s strictures on him and reason that God may be resentful of man having ‘good clean fun’.
Instead, disciples of Christ who are like the beloved John would lean on Jesus (John 13:23) at all times. We believe in a perfect God who loves us and would do anything for us. He gave His life as the ultimate sacrifice of love. We believe in a perfect God who is righteous and just. He gave His life to pay the penalty of sin on our behalf.
When we walk with the Lord
in the light of his word,
what a glory he sheds on our way!
While we do his good will,
he abides with us still,
and with all who will trust and obey.
Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.