Light and life
Day 687, Monday, June 29
1 John Chapter 1 – 2:11
Like the gospel of John, and like the Bible itself, the first letter of John begins with a contemplation of light and darkness. “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But 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.”
1 John is not mere philosophical contemplation. Walking in light or in darkness shows up in our conduct as well as our belief. “Whoever says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in that person. But if anyone obeys his word, love for God is truly made complete in them. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.”
Obedience and truth don’t run at all counter to love; they are how love is made visible. “Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble.”
-Rev. Mark Fleming
Monday meditation
Ecclesiastes 2:12-16
Then I turned my thoughts to consider wisdom, and also madness and folly. What more can the king’s successor do than what has already been done? I saw that wisdom is better than folly, just as light is better than darkness. The wise have eyes in their heads, while the fool walks in the darkness; but I came to realize that the same fate overtakes them both.
Then I said to myself, “The fate of the fool will overtake me also. What then do I gain by being wise?” I said to myself, “This too is meaningless.” For the wise, like the fool, will not be long remembered; the days have already come when both have been forgotten. Like the fool, the wise too must die!
Prayer focus
Shine your light on us, Lord, and expose every dark corner so that we may see it and surrender it to you.