Saturday: Responsible for All We Know and All We Might Know
WEEK 50
SATURDAY
RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL WE KNOW AND ALL WE MIGHT KNOW
Romans 8:1-8
Does what has been said about the mastery of not always being right open the door to indulgences, giving excuses for half-Christian living and providing for failure and sin? The answer is an emphatic no!
Let us go back and look at the passage: “If we walk in the light, as he is in the light” (1 John 1:7 RSV); that is clear and decisive. A Christian is one who is responding to all the meanings found in Jesus; walking in all the light to be found in him. The moment we refuse to walk in the light as seen in Jesus, there the light ceases. We begin to walk in darkness. Only the person who is living up to the light that he or she has is getting more light.
I say “the light that he or she has,” but we are responsible also for the light that we might have. We should be eagerly open to more and more light, for new light breaks out from the person of Jesus all the time. “[The Holy Spirit] will take what is mine and proclaim it to you” (John 16:14); the work of the Holy Spirit is to unfold an unfolding Christ. Revelation is progressive, fixed in the historic Jesus but unfolding in the universal Christ. The Holy Spirit makes you see that there is more to be seen. That puts you on the tiptoe of opening expectancy. If you sin against the light that you have, there is one penalty; you get no more light. In other words you cease to grow; you deteriorate. The punishment is in the person. You are the payoff.
But the moment we begin to obey again, begin to “walk in the light, as he is in the light,” then the fellowship one with another begins, and the blood of Jesus Christ begins to cleanse again. The blood of Jesus cleanses those who walk in the light, and only those. When we refuse to walk in the light, he automatically shuts off the cleansing— and the fellowship. But the person who is honestly walking in the light has fellowship and cleansing even though that person blunders and sins while walking in the light. If God sees the central intentions are right, God forgives and cleanses marginal mistakes and sins. God is not a mote picker; God is a maker of men and women.
O Lord, I thank you that you are not the all-seeing eye, looking for my weakness and blunders. You are the all-saving Lord, loving me in spite of my failures. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I shall walk in all the light I have today, and then in the added light I shall glow.