Letting in the light

There is something comfortably deceptive about the way most of us live our lives. 90% of drivers think that they are better than 50% of other drivers. 97% of senior executives think that they are in the top 10% of senior executives. In some cases, it seems, the smarter we are the more likely we are to be deluded about ourselves. We want popularity, and we are not happy when someone else threatens to shed the light of truth on our fantasies. However, God is only interested in the truth, not in our make-believe. As John says in the first chapter of his first letter:

This is the message which we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light; there is no darkness at all in him. If we claim that we have fellowship with him while living in the darkness, we are lying, and not telling the truth. But if we live in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of his Son Jesus Christ washes us clean from all sin.

Living in the light involves shedding the delusions that we use to make us feel better or more important than we really are. The lies which we tell to ourselves and to others build up invisible barriers between us, isolating us from each other. If we want to have true fellowship with each other, then we have to let the light into our dark corners and embrace truth and reality. Only then can we have right relationships with each other and with God.