God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

God Is Transparent with Us, So Be Transparent with Him and Others (1 John 1:5 to 1 John 2:2)

Summary
The summary of what we saw last time, at the beginning of the first epistle of John:

Ouessant Island

The island of Ouessant is famous for its lighthouses.

The Créac’h lighthouse was built in 1863 on the island of Ouessant, one of the Ponant islands. It has a height of 47 meters, it is the most powerful lighthouse in Europe. Its two superimposed lanterns emit a light signal of eight beams with a range of approximately 60 kilometres.

Also, Sentinel Island is surrounded by 5 lighthouses.
I heard a native of the area, who is a guide for walks on the island, say that you can walk there at night without any problem.

The Light of the Lord

It’s the same thing with our Lord in the darkness of our rebellion, of our decay, He is the only light:

• whose purity enlightens us on the reality of our state,
• whose purity reveals the truth to us about all things,
• whose purity empowers us through Christ to be forgiven and to advance in His likeness.

Light Illustrates the Perfect One
Sometimes the image of light illustrates the perfect, holy, pure side of God.

Light Illustrates Transparency
In other texts, Jesus illustrates transparency:

• Christ is true,
• what He says is reality, and is reliable.

Darkness illustrates a dark side

Conversely, darkness would reveal someone who has a dark side in his life, who has a bad secret, like keeping something under the pedal and darkness is related to sin (there is always a form of enjoyment, cheese-swatter). A share of control not handed over to God’s lighting. It is a scenario of one saying that it is I who is in charge (pride, the moral value of our society, etc.).

In the text of the day

And it is this meaning that is at the heart of the text of 1 John that we are going to read today. Let’s look together:

Light-Transparency

Darkness – a part of a shadow

A reminder of the previous text
This is the continuation of what we read the last time:

• God, Jesus, almighty, capable, creator, desires to be in communion with us,
• a communion shared between those who place Jesus as Savior and Lord.

The apostle John is a privileged witness and he reminds us of that here.

1 John chapter 1

This is the message that we have heard from him and that we announce to you:
God is light and there is no darkness in him.
(God is true and clear, there is no double side)

6 If we say we have fellowship with him while walking in darkness, (while cultivating a dark side) we are lying and not practising the truth.
7 But if we walk in the light, just as God himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus [Christ] his Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9 If we recognize our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us of them and to cleanse us from all evil.
10 If we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his word is not in us.

1 John chapter 2
1 My little children, I am writing this to you so that you do not sin. But if anyone has sinned, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
2 He himself is the expiatory victim for our sins, and not only for ours but also for those of the whole world.

This text is quite simple.

Fellowship with God?

If we tell others or if we tell ourselves, often the first person we deceive is ourselves!
That we are in communion with God and yet we keep and cultivate things that are not of God, that steal the place of God, that emerge at one time or another as a priority. Today’s passage tells us that we walk in darkness in doing this.

Walking in darkness

Walking in darkness means cultivating a part of darkness.

Cultivating Against Biblical Truth

If I cultivate this dark side, I cannot say that I am putting God’s truth – the truth that God shows me in his Word (the Bible) into practice.

Not realizing your sin

We can even in this process of cultivating a part of darkness convince ourselves that we are normal Christians, a bit like the others. Finally, we do not see or no longer see the sin that sticks to our skin:

• clarity,
• transparency,
• the truth has fled us,
• discernment too,
• we tell ourselves that it’s normal,
• we are next to the plaque.

Double game
And in the end, the ambivalence and the cultivated lie rob us of the understanding of the Word of God, the understanding of God.

In the end, who is the liar, God or me?
If I voluntarily keep in my heart in something that God condemns, while saying that I am in communion with my brothers and sisters, with God, when God says the opposite, there is a problem:

• either I am a liar,
• or it is God.
  It is the perception of what I am hiding that is at stake:
• I find it good
• God sees it as a sin.
  Ultimately, it’s His word against mine.

Is the Word of God reliable or mine?

That’s a good question since it is by His very word
• that He created the world from nothing,
• that He performed all the miracles presented to us by the Gospels,
• that He was resurrected,
• that He gave us lots of speeches so that we know the truth.

• And you, your word?

Theory to practice

Not to remain conceptual, what could be my darkness?
What am I cultivating personally, without putting it back in the light of God in complete transparency?

• My freedom,
• my thirst for possession,
• the sexual experience as soon as it arises,
• a desire for life together,
• her health,
• her beauty,
• my family,
• my comfort,
• certainty,
• the revenge,
• the refusal to forgive (receipt or approach),
• my devouring ambition for everything,
• the culmination of life: married, a house with a view of the lake, the first children in the class, breakfast in the sun and the dog running in the garden,
• placing my values ​​in a political and spiritual movement and defending them,
• patriotism.

Mechanism of these examples

Let’s understand the mechanism of these examples:

My freedom
Puts my individualism at the service of my egoism.
I am the priority and God must be at my service.

My thirst for possession.
Certainly one of the values ​​to which we are most attached, Westerners or not.
It shapes our life goals, instead of it being God.
It puts us on intangible “reasonable” principles, could God call that into question?

• Our savings,
• our insurance,
• our 2nd and 3rd pillars,
• our way of life,
• our never-satisfied purchases,
• my hoped-for right to an inheritance
  could God call them into question?
  Or are they intangible values ​​that have nothing to do with my faith in Christ?

The sexual experience as soon as it presents itself.
Before or after the wedding, this hides behind, in the background of the thoughts, that one is perhaps the last of the idiots if one refuses a hyper-favourable opportunity. Everyone would have done that! Does the light of God have the same reading?

Loneliness. Single.

Is it a terror?
If so, it is certain that she risks making a mistake.
Because if the desire to get married, to start a family is a number 1 priority, you will cling to the first or the first and not to what God says on the subject.

His health
Your health is perhaps your number one priority, if it were taken away from you, would all the fault be with God? Would you do anything for your health? Are you going to use occult means?

Her beauty.

If I am beautiful and if you are beautiful and that is taken away from you. Is it so important to look like such a fashion profile, such a person?
A study had me a little stunned: it highlighted that in the student world, investment in fashion was a priority for many compared to the food budget.

My family

My family, my children, my spouse, my parents, a newborn? Are they our gods?

A friend confessed to us that she was not sure how she would react (this implied spiritually) if one of her relatives was suddenly hit.
Incidentally, the fact of having mentioned to us was already a first step, hence one could ensure this subject is not in the depths of darkness where God has no right.

My goods

Whatever I have is mine alone.
As soon as you touch it, any spiritual aspect vanishes.

Ah yes, and these goods how did you acquire them? Who gave you the capacities, the economic and political environment so that you prosper or inherit?

Job was immensely rich and very aware that it was a favour from the Lord. Yet God allowed riches to be taken away from him.
If his wealth was a god, Job would have cursed God, but his consciousness of God was stronger than his wealth.

You don’t have to be rich to be too attached to what you have.

My comfort

“Amen, Lord, to all those wonderful missionaries who devote themselves full-time to bringing your light to the savages or the unbelievers.

And for you, would it be possible, over there, in France, with the support of a missionary?
We won’t say it openly, but our comfort turns out to be a real idol, a due that God cannot call into question.

Vengeance

There’s no reason why the harm done to me shouldn’t be returned or even a little stronger. If the opportunity arises and I am in a position of strength, I will not miss it.
Fortunately, God does not act in this way!

Refusal of forgiveness

1000 excuses, even pseudo-biblical, in fact, I have too much pride. I forgive but I do not forget…

My all-consuming ambition
Every time I do something, I have to be first, which is different from doing it well.
Areas: leisure, study, work, church.

Pinnacle of life

(ultimate cliché of our consumer society, revisited endlessly in films and advertisements:

• married, Ken and Barbie,
• the children, he is a doctor and she is a school principal
• the house with a view of the lake,
• and the dog running in the garden with the small children, worse than magazine covers)

If it is a life goal, at all stuck in our hearts, then we risk having attitudes and life choices that will serve this ambition before serving Christ. God can allow it to be given as a grace, but it is not a due, nor a god…

Placing my values
​​ • moral,

• political,
• spiritual,
• theological,
  as sanctuaries, will necessarily lead me to defend them, instead of being a witness of Christ!

Patriotism for my origin
Does my patriotism reflect xenophobia or affection

• towards my neighbour?
• towards my brother or my sister?
  Would my citizenship of heaven come after that of my country, or of the confederation, my canton, or my community?

It can be powerful, so much so that a servant of God so attached to his country, to the detriment of lost souls, that he went the opposite of where God expected him, so stubborn in his patriotism that he even sacrificed his life: Remember Jonah.

Are our dreams carried with simplicity to God, in full transparency?

Idols We Hold
These few examples show that in our darkness hide idols that we worship and serve without even realizing it. And it would not even occur to us to question them by transparency in the light of Christ.

Idols for which we are ready to do anything

• We become wolves, and beasts, if taken away from us,
• we become predators when we don’t have them, ready to jump on them at any price, so these attachments are tenacious and buried in the depths of our thoughts.

Everything reaches

• Necessarily, we all have something that steals priority from God and necessarily something to which we are attached and that God reproves.

Do I cultivate it or do I become transparent about it?
The question at stake: do I cultivate it or do I play transparency with God?

No one is perfect
Today’s text does not speak of a perfect human: no human will be luminous like God and Christ!

But honest with God
But people who walk in the light of God, under the light of God, Thus, we can see what is wrong.

Illumination of the Holy Spirit
The Holy Spirit illuminates these grey areas and gives me discernment to see what is of God or not.

Solution in Christ

Which allows me to bring them to Christ, to find the right solution in Christ,

• because His blood purifies me from all sins,
• because He is our defender who, by taking our fault, by taking the just punishment for our fault and by overcoming this fault, has the solution to give us victory.

Why does Christ have the ability to win?

• Because He is just,
• He is just because He is God.

Christ has already carried everything.

Christ on the cross has already carried

• my bad understanding,
• my bad priorities,
• my bad judgments,
• my resentments,
• my bad goals,
• my bad attachments,
• my false self-image,
• my selfishness,
• my individualism,
• my pride,
• my laziness,
• my hedonism,
• my false fights,
• my false reasonings.

Lighting
In doing so, when I walk in the light of God, He enlightens me on my wrong paths.

Work of the Holy Spirit
It is the marvellous work of the Holy Spirit, of His Word, the Bible (the Holy Spirit presided over the entire drafting of the Bible), and the blessing of the brothers and sisters who support us (because the Holy Spirit is at work in their lives).

Virtuous circle
Moreover, the more I am simple, transparent, listening to what God tells me through his Spirit: the more his Spirit will be active in me, and the more the process of enlightening me will be virtuous.

Destructive spiral
Conversely, the more I hide and cultivate what the Holy Spirit brings to light, the less I am sensitive to His action and the more I feed my darkness.

Attitude to aim
So if God underlines things to me, and brings them to light, instead of justifying them, finding excuses, or cultivating them, I recognize them; I ask forgiveness from God and come to Christ for purification. Christ helps me to metamorphose my false ideas and values ​​to replace them with His own and to change my reflexes when I am confronted with a similar situation.

Reality
I am not perfect but I progress in His light with transparency.

Consequences
Consequences of this transparency:

• communion with God through Christ,
• communion with God because Christ makes it possible, because He took our imperfection and condemnation, he overcame it and because it is He who helps us move from progress to progress if we are true to Him.

Communion with my brothers and sisters
Communion with my brothers and sisters who are in the same process but there is usually a break in communion with those who are sufficient in the face of this attitude of transparency.

• It is not because of the brothers and sisters but because of the one who refuses the illumination of Christ.

Priorities take precedence over Christ and fellowship
In the end, the priority hidden aspects will come out at some point and reveal that we were not on the same wavelength, that we were not walking in the light of Christ.

Root of Church Problems
Secret ties and pride are the sources of all problems of communion between brothers and sisters (which will be highly justified by the Bible): values that take precedence over Christ, His body, and the church of the redeemed.

Instead of recognizing the wrong priority, out of pride, one says, ‘I’m not going to move’. There are clouds in the relationships because the darkness has done its work, thus, the communion flies away.

Summary

Through today’s text, God invites us to be someone who advances with an uncovered face, ready to hand over to Christ what God will point out to him and to no longer be someone who advances masked, camped on what he/she considered capital in his/her eyes, alone without God.

Taking stock
This text invites us to take stock with God in reflection and in prayer.

Perhaps there is an aspect in our reflection in prayer on which we could dwell:
Lord,
I lack discernment,
I lack clairvoyance,
that I may be more sensitive to Your light.
Give me a humble heart to hand over to You what I attach enormous value to, ultimately more than to You.
Thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit, help me to be sensitive to it, so that He can work in me, through Your Word.
Thank you, for Your listening, thank you for Your ability to turn the tide.
Forgive me for my missteps!
Praise be to You because You carried them to the cross in my place!
Praise be to You because You have overcome them!
Adoration to You, Lord Jesus Christ, because You are the conqueror, the creator, the restorer!
Help me to stay in this simplicity and this heart-to-heart relationship with You!
Thank you for my brothers and sisters in faith with You!
Increase the bond between us by Your truth and not by mine!