DAILY ENCOURAGEMENT TUESDAY – WALK IN THE LIGHT

I want the whole Christ for my Saviour, the whole Bible for my book, the whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field. -- John Wesley.

If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. - 1 John 1:6-7. ESV

Making decisions in the dark can lead to some regrettable consequences. Back in the days before electricity, a tightfisted old farmer was taking his hired man to task for carrying a lighted lantern when he went to call on his best girl. "Why," he exclaimed, "when I went a-courtin' I never carried one of them things. I always went in the dark." "Yes," the hired man said wryly, "and look what you got!" - Source Unknown.

To “walk in the darkness,” means to live the life that the ungodly live, doing those things that are against God’s Word, in other words, live in sin. Such people do not “have fellowship with him,” i.e., they are not born of God…

Stay away from people who are not followers of the Lord! Can someone who is good get along with someone who is evil? Are light and darkness the same? Is Christ a friend of Satan? Can people who follow the Lord have anything in common with those who don't? - 2 Cor 6:14-15. CEV

Those who have fellowship with God, experience His daily grace, and live lives of holiness in His daily presence. What a wonderful blessing! Praise the mighty Name of Jesus!

Fellowship in the N.T. basically means sharing and self-sacrifice with other believers. As N.T. scholar J.R. McRay has noted, "Fellowship in the early church was not based on uniformity of thought and practice, except where limits of immorality or rejection of the confession of Christ were involved." - Christianity Today.

To “walk in the light” means to believe God’s truth as revealed in His Word, and to make an honest and continual effort by His grace, to follow in word and accomplishment. The “blood of Jesus, his son, purifies us from all sin” refers to the ongoing work of sanctification within the believer, and the continual purification for our unintentional sins. This constant purifying allows us to have intimate fellowship with God. Praise His wonderful Name, what a mighty God we serve!

In 1818, Ignaz Phillip Semmelweis was born into a world of dying women. The finest hospitals lost one out of six young mothers to the scourge of "childbed fever." A doctor's daily routine began in the dissecting room where he performed autopsies. From there he made his way to the hospital to examine expectant mothers without ever pausing to wash his hands.

Dr. Semmelweis was the first man in history to associate such examinations with the resultant infection and death. His own practice was to wash with a chlorine solution, and after eleven years and the delivery of 8,537 babies, he lost only 184 mothers--about one in fifty.

He spent the vigor of his life lecturing and debating with his colleagues. Once he argued, "Puerperal fever is caused by decomposed material, conveyed to a wound. . .I have shown how it can be prevented. I have proved all that I have said. But while we talk ,talk, talk, gentlemen, women are dying. I am not asking anything world shaking. I am asking you only to wash...For God's sake, wash your hands."

But virtually no one believed him. Doctors and midwives had been delivering babies for thousands of years without washing, and no outspoken Hungarian was going to change them now!

Semmelweis died insane at the age of 47, his wash basins discarded, his colleagues laughing in his face, and the death rattle of a thousand women ringing in his ears.

"Wash me!" was the anguished prayer of King David. "Wash!" was the message of John the Baptist. "Unless I wash you, you have no part with me," said the towel-draped Jesus to Peter. Without our being washed clean, we all die from the contamination of sin. For God's sake, wash. - Boyce Mouton.

LET US WALK IN THE LIGHT.

Loving Father, thank you for your daily grace and presence in my life, and for the precious blood of Jesus my Lord and Saviour, that enables me to have a wonderful, and abundant fellowship with you. Help me by the power of the Holy Spirit, to walk in the light. In Jesus lovely Name I pray. Amen.

Be encouraged!
GBYAY