Living in Holiness

"This is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is not darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with Him yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live by 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 1:5-7


Unfortunately, my little Caroline can have a BAD tendency to lie. Usually, when she lies she is trying to avoid getting in trouble for something she has done. And ususally when she lies she gets in bigger trouble than she would have than had she just owned up to her first offense! Though she is only six, she has had some hard lessons to learn about lying, just as we all have. It is a hard lesson to learn that LIVING by the truth is most important. Not just saying that we value the truth, but LIVING it.



This scripture is one that I have read hundreds of times. It is funny how we can be pretty familiar with a passage and then read it just one more time only to have it slap us in the face with it's truth?


God isn't looking for children who SAY they have fellowship. He is looking for faithful followers of Christ how LIVE in fellowship. Living in holiness does have it's requirements. While we are washed in the blood of Jesus and cleansed 100% from our sin, we also have expectations on our lives to live it the way He calls us to.



Not long ago our power went out at our house. It was really kind of strange. There was no storm or strong wind... it just went out. As it got later in the day our home began to get darker and darker (and hotter and hotter!). Around 9:30 the lights in the houses around us began to come back on, but our house was still dark. My husband called the power company to find out why we were still in the dark and they informed him that they were working on it, but that some homes were restored quicker than others. We needed to be patient.



What good would it have done for us to claim that we had power when we didn't? We did not have light to see, power to cook by or the coolness of the air conditioner. We could say "Oh yea! We have power! Our lights are fine! They are called flash lights and candles!! That is our light!" While we did have those small sources of light we did not have the REAL source. We could claim that we had light, but really we were still walking in total darkness.



God it telling us... perhaps we do know about Him. Maybe we even go to church and sing to Him and hear things that make us feel good about Him. Knowing things about Him is great, but are we IN FELLOWSHIP with Him?



Knowing about your mom's best friend does not make you have a relationship with that friend. You are not directly in fellowship with her, your mom is! Knowing about our friend's God is not being in direct fellowship with Him.



The scripture says " If we claim to have fellowship yet walk in darkness we lie and do not live by the truth." (vs 6) If we are claiming to know God, and are not living it we are lying. We are lying to God and we are lying to ourselves. We have to be plugged into that source of power in our lives. We can say, "But I am a good person!" and that may be true, but that is only a candle burning compared to the source of God's goodness! Fellowship with someone means that you begin to relate to them, and in that relating you pick up on their characteristics or their habits. When you are with someone that gossips you are more likely to become a gossip. When you are around someone that is happy they usually can rub off on you and you feel happy.



So get this... when we fellowship with God He rubs off on us too! His holiness.. oh, I want to be holy or set apart! His goodness, His kindness, His faithfulness, His patience, His love, His joy, His peace, His gentleness... they all become a part of us because we are allowing our relationship with Him to grow and the Holy Spirit can fill us with His blessings.



Let's not lie to ourselves. Let's not lie to God! Let us seek to have fellowship with Him that is authentic (the REAL deal!) and let us live set apart lives that honor Him.

"We know that we have come to know Him if we obey His commands. The man who says, "I know Him," but does not do what He commands is a liar, and the truth is not in Him. But if anyone obeys His Wrod, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in Him: Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did." 1 John 2:3-6