November 30

Daniel 7:1-28; 1 John 1:1-10; Psalm 119:153-176; Proverbs 28:23-24

The words of John were refreshing water to my soul this morning. John writes from very personal experience; he tells us that he knew the Word of Life himself. John had heard Him, he had seen Him, he had looked at Him, and he had even touched Him. His knowledge of Jesus Christ was personal and intimate and that gives validity to the words he now writes to believers.

He says that the God we follow is light—He shines light on all who believe. And to those who believe, He shines light on our sin. That’s a rather uncomfortable thought. But what a good thought! For we are sinful and we need His cleansing. John cautions us against believing that we are not sinful and that we don’t need the cleansing light of God Himself.

A dear friend of mine once told me that she had no awareness of her own sin. I was stunned by this, and tried to say, “Well, we all sin. Ask the Lord to begin to reveal areas of sin in your life.” Her words were all the more shocking to me because she was well aware of sin in the lives of those close to her and she didn’t mind pointing out their sin. And she was right about the sin of others—those close to her were acting in sinful ways. But her area of weakness was self-examination. The Word of God says that we all sin. I encouraged her to look more at herself with the Light of God’s Word and less at the sin of others.

Yes, it’s easy to see the sin of others, even as it was easy for me to see my friend’s sin of declaring that she didn’t feel sinful! But God’s light is designed to show us our own sin so that we can deal with it! I say a sharp word to someone and the Lord shows it to me by a discomfort in my heart. I can ignore that—the words I said weren’t so bad and why does he need to be so touchy anyway! But if I ignore it, and I sometimes do, my heart gets hard in that place where I feel the unease. And it gets a little bit harder to see that sin the next time. God’s plan for us is to let His light reveal our moment-by-moment sins so we can confess and repent.

We often travel with a couple who are old friends of ours, and I’ve noticed that on each trip the husband usually comes to us at least once to say, “I was out of line in what I said yesterday and I want to acknowledge that. I don’t want anything between us.” We usually hadn’t really noticed, but what touches me is his heart to keep things clean and clear between us. That’s the light of God shining in his heart, encouraging him to confess places where his heart was wrong and where relationship may have been harmed.

“Lord God, thank you for the light You shine on us to expose our sin. May we be quick to respond to that light and make clean the areas You reveal. Amen.”

- Nell Sunukjian

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