I wanna be in the light...

5This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. 6If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. 7But 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. 8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

I was riding back from Pennsylvania this week with a good friend of mine. We got to discussing church and my friend shared with me that he did not go to church because of the hypocrites. I thought about this some and I think that most people are hypocrites. I even shared with my friend that I was not perfect and did not claim to be. I don't think that is what he meant though. I think what bothers him (about church) is not so much that I go to church and fall short, but that some people go there and think that they do not fall short or at least pretend that they are perfect.

When I read the verse above, I can read it in several ways. It is difficult to analyze standing by itself because it is so tightly related to the verses that follow it. I am going to suggest for today as a stand alone verse that we can read it as my friend reads Christians. Thou shalt not be a hypocrite and claim otherwise. Do not muddy the name of Christ by claiming you have been made perfect, but fully admit that you are still seeking after Him.

I am reminded that our attitude in this should be like that of Paul. In Philippians 3 Paul tells the reader of his desire to be more like Christ:

Philippians 3:7But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 10I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

If the apostle had stopped here, perhaps some would be justified in their behavior in following Christ, however Paul did not stop here, he went on to say this:

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

As the song goes, "We are not home yet". We need to keep this attitude in mind. We have not attained the goal to which we have been called, yet we should be persistent in pursuing it. We should desire Christ and should be pursuing after Him, not focusing on the mistakes that we have made, but only on the future glory we will share with Him.

So to be clear, the Christian should be wanting holiness, but he should not be claiming it because he has not attained it yet. He should be pursuing it without looking back, but I want to close with the next verses in Philippians because I think this is what my friend was talking about. Paul writes:

15All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. 16Only let us live up to what we have already attained.

My friends, this is my prayer for you and for me. Let us live up to what we have already attained while we are pressing forward.