“This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses us from all sin.”
1 John 1:5-7
John has now moved from his introduction in which he states that they had heard, seen, and touched Jesus, the Word of Life. Now he declares the message they had heard from Jesus to the church. A message that states who God is and who He is not. So why did they, or for that matter, why do we need to know these two things about God?
So, let’s first take a look at what God is. John says, “God is light?” It means there is nothing obscure or hidden about Him. I have known people who claim He is nowhere to be found. They believe He is off in some other universe doing whatever He does. They may feel like that is the case, but it isn’t true; the Word of God states that “The LORD is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18) That means that long-distance relationships don’t work with the Lord, just like it doesn’t work with anyone else.
The next part says that there is no darkness in Him. Here, John has doubled down on the fact that there is nothing obscure about Him. According to the rest of what John is saying, we are the ones who suffer from obscurity. We hide from God and make claims that we know Him. We live a separate life from Him and His people and believe we are “okay” with Him. Perhaps, at some point in your life, you went through the process of saying a “sinners prayer” and believe that was all that was necessary. Or, perhaps you don’t realize that you must have a close, personal, unobscured relationship with God and His Son Jesus Christ.
John makes it very clear that we must live life as unobscured with Him as He is with us. So, please consider the instructions of John and come out of the dark side into the light.