I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on 1 John 1-5.

John uses the metaphor of light for goodness and it is really a good metaphor.  In his metaphor, the sun is kind of like God.  Just the sun pushes aside all darkness, so God pushes aside all evil, all sin.  If we live in God’s light, God’s love, we will love all of those who also live in God’s light.  Furthermore, there is no room within God’s light for hate.  In fact, John really focuses his letter on two points. First, he emphasizes the importance of loving one another.  We cannot truly claim to be obedient servants of God if we do not love our fellow believers.  Second, John repeats the point that those who live as children of God will not live in sin.  I have always found John’s way of putting it comforting.  If we do sin, we have Jesus to intercede for us with God.  So, John’s point seems to be that while we may sin after accepting Christ as our Savior, we cannot think, “Oh, that’s OK, God will forgive me,” and just go on sinning.  On the other hand, he also does not want us to despair when we do sin.