He is The light.

This is my last post for the semester.  That realization is both joyful and sad.  I am glad that I will no longer have the pressure of completing these assignments, but sad because I know that they have helped me to really ponder what I have learned.  The act of writing these posts helps me to sort through the readings and land on something that I need to spend a little more time on.

This week we spent a great deal of time with John.  1 John is thought to have been written around AD 96.  Christ had been crucified a short 96 years earlier and already people were distorting the teachings.  They began teaching that there was no way God would lower himself and live amongst them so these things must have all been symbolic. In an effort to help the people to discern between the true gospel and the false teachings, John wrote these epistles.

In 1 John 1 John shares his testimony of Christ.  He tells us that He most surely lived.  Not only did He live, but that he saw Him and he heard Him.  He reminds us that God is light, there is no evil and no darkness related to God and if we follow Him then we need to walk in the light and avoid the dark.

I know this is a simple statement, but the gospel really is simple, it only gets complicated when we try to justify our actions and muddy the water.  The simple truth is that if we are followers of Christ, we will avoid evil.  As we navigate life we need to stop and ponder our choices and our heart.  If we are full of envy, jealousy or other negative feelings then we need to make a course correction because we are not following Christ fully.  The things of Christ will only bring us joy and happiness.