I’ve been med­i­tat­ing on the writ­ings of the Apos­tle John¹ and found myself in 1 John. Here are some unfil­tered thoughts as I have been read­ing through the first chapter…

That which was from the begin­ning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we pro­claim con­cern­ing the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and tes­tify to it, and we pro­claim to you the eter­nal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We pro­claim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fel­low­ship with us. And our fel­low­ship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ. We write this to make our joy com­plete.

John had the priv­i­lege of expe­ri­enc­ing Christ in his phys­i­cal form. He had sat with, touched, ate with, lived with Jesus. His under­stand­ing of Christ was very expe­ri­en­tial. But John also had another expe­ri­ence. He was the only dis­ci­ple of Jesus who died nat­u­rally, and that meant he had the longest time of all the dis­ci­ples to know Jesus in daily spir­i­tual rela­tion­ship. He did not see Jesus, but his rela­tion­ship with him was as alive as it ever was. Jesus was not only a mem­ory, but still the vibrant Christ that ruled his heart.

The same Jesus that lived in Judea and had that imme­di­ate, expe­ri­en­tial, phys­i­cal impact on the lives of many, still has the same rela­tional, expe­ri­en­tial hold on John. Jesus the Christ, his mes­sage, his Cross, his life… when our lives are found directly in his, then we truly have found life. Eter­nity begins not when we die, but eter­nal life in Christ begins when our lives are found in Christ’s.

God and his Son Jesus Christ, directly qual­ify and jus­tify our fel­low­ship. We gather together, live life together, come together…under the name of Christ. Under the name of Jesus we find true life. Every­thing comes under him. John is set­ting the record straight for the Chris­tians he is speak­ing to. God is the only rea­son and pur­pose for which we gather. Our lives, our being and doing, our rela­tion­ships, our inter­ac­tions with the world, all come out of a life in God.

There is an invi­ta­tion of true fel­low­ship to all in John’s writ­ing. Come and expe­ri­ence a life worth liv­ing. Life in Jesus ful­fills beyond all things. You can search out the depths of Christ, and come up still gasp­ing for more. You can go big and you can go small… God goes beyond any­thing and every­thing. So John invites the church of Jesus to true fellowship.

There is joy in bear­ing Christ’s mes­sage to his body. John expe­ri­enced the joy of bear­ing the mes­sage of God to the Church.

This is the mes­sage we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no dark­ness at all. 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. If we claim to be with­out sin, we deceive our­selves and the truth is not in us. If we con­fess our sins, he is faith­ful and just and will for­give us our sins and purify us from all unright­eous­ness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

The mes­sage over­flows and over­whelms John. He speaks a mes­sage that comes from the core of his being. It comes from his iden­tity in God. The Jesus that he calls Lord, is the same Jesus he walked with, and now rules and reigns in his being. The work of the Holy Spirit in the life of John, brings him to a place of bring­ing God’s good news to peo­ple. He does not just bring a mes­sage; rather for John, his life in its entirety is the mes­sage. He does not merely bear the Good News; rather John has lived in such a way that incar­nates the Good News.

The dif­fer­ence between Chris­tian­ity as we think of it and fol­low­ing Christ as John sees it: fel­low­ship with God, in the most fun­da­men­tal sense. A life truly and utterly devoted to God, from the biggest thing to the small­est thing. Where love rules, jus­tice pre­vails, where we for­give and love instead of judge and hate, where our inner lives prac­tice what our outer lives pro­claim, when the king­dom of God is made manifest.

A life in true fel­low­ship with God is grow­ing in how we relate to God, how we relate to our­selves, how we relate to each other in Christ’s body, and how we relate to the world. It also helps us see how we relate to our past, our present, and our future in God. A life in fel­low­ship with God moves beyond a self­ish moti­va­tion, and takes on a God-rooted moti­va­tion. It finds itself seek­ing to think the way God thinks, to love the way God loves, to for­give the way God for­gives, to be the fig­u­ra­tive and lit­eral hands and feet of God in our world.

A life in fel­low­ship with God requires our utmost hon­esty. It requires of us a sub­mis­sion to God that brings us to a place of hon­est assess­ment and accep­tance that we are truly debtors to the infi­nite grace of God, that is avail­able to us. When we hide our­selves from God’s light and choose, in our pride, to belit­tle the bounty of God’s good­ness, we are really say­ing God is not faith­ful, and if He is not faith­ful He is a liar. True and hon­est sub­mis­sion to God requires of us a divine humil­ity; for we are inca­pable of humanly being so hon­est and sub­mis­sive. To receive God’s for­give­ness and walk in inti­macy with Him, requires of us true and hon­est sub­mis­sion. This requires the power of God’s Holy Spirit in our lives.

In Con­clu­sion

May we expe­ri­ence God in our lives. In our going and com­ing, in all that we do and say, in all that we believe and hope for, may our rev­e­la­tion of Jesus trans­form us. May we expe­ri­ence life together with Christ’s body, his Church, in greater fel­low­ship. May we cen­ter our lives around Jesus. May our lives incar­nate the mes­sage of Jesus to the world around us. May we live out as cit­i­zens of God’s king­dom, we live what we pro­claim. May our mes­sage always point to Jesus. May our dreams find it’s roots in God. May we love like Jesus loves, for­give like he for­gives, serve self­lessly as he served self­lessly, and may our lives con­tinue to tell God’s story.