[1 John Series 2] Real Life Walks In The LightSample

The dark side

In the first chapter of the first letter of John, we see a fight between light and darkness. John says that we are sinful, and that we don’t want to admit that we are wrong. Sadly, the pride behind this condition is the path to deceiving ourselves. We end up creating a new reality so that we can put together a world in which our sin is not wrong, but normal.

“Birds of a feather flock together” is a way we can put it. Thieves like to hang out with thieves, drunkards like to hang out with drunkards, drug folks like to hang out with drug folks, cursers like to hang out with cursers, and this and that like to hang out with whatever they are. We circle ourselves all around with those in our likeness. What started with an: “I know this is wrong, I know this is bad,” ends up with an, “Everybody does it.”

This delusion ends up being a sinful and prideful place where we have basically created a new reality where sin is no longer sin, and we call darkness light, and light darkness. Where we plant this garden of our lives and we pick up weeds and we call them vegetables. “No. This isn’t wrong.” Why is it not wrong? “Because everybody does it.” And we get around folks that do what we want to do, and we have a new alternate reality. We have self-deception. We are deceiving ourselves. Do you know what we call it? Here’s what we call it: Justification. 

“I’m not materialistic. I just like nice stuff. Everybody likes nice stuff.” 

“I’m not selfish, I just like my way. I just like how my way is. I think that’s the best way to do it.”

Everybody likes their way. So what happens is we then create a self-deceptive place where we justify our sin, and we slowly but surely begin to walk in the shadows, to then walk in the dark, until, finally, we circle ourselves with this group that will normalize our sin and make it no longer sin. Why? Because everybody does it. And that’s how we define what’s sin, what’s right or what’s wrong in society, in our own heart, and the Bible tells us here, “When you walk in darkness, you walk in self-deception. Self-deception and lies.”

Our only hope is to walk in the light.