Glow! Week 1

*Everywhere you go gives you a chance to glow!*

June 6th, 2010

For the past two weeks at New Albany church, my pastor has been doing a series called Glow! I am just loving it so far. During the first week (2 Sundays ago from this day), he talked about when one steps into a relationship with God, therein begins joy. We then have light and because we have light, there is no room for darkness or sin, and because there is no room for darkness, we experience conflict. A war starts to stir where the light meets the darkness and exposes it. This is where we can come to confess the darkness with in us and if we continue to weed out the darkness, then all that is left is LIGHT! And so we GLOW, glow the light and love of Jesus. In order to expose and get rid of the darkness, there is a need for confession. I love the way that Joel defined confession. I think there is a lot of negative connotation for the word "Confession." I don't know about you, but confession is scary. To me it means, you reveal the sin in your life, what is bad to others. But Joel's definition of confession seemed a little less scary. He said, "Confession means to say the same thing that God says about your sin...It's speaking in unison about your sin with God. I don't know about you, but I love this, what is a new take for me on confession. It's coming to an agreement on what darkness is in your life. Many times we go walking around and don't realize the darkness that dwells within us, so it hides and oh does it hide well. By recognizing and revealing that darkness in agreement with God, we can then ask God to remove that darkness from our live. And you see, God hates sin/darkness, He detests it. You know why? Because it is not good and separates you from Him. God wants to be with you, to love you, to grow in you, to be loved and worshiped by you and for you to love others as he's loved you. I find this amazing. It's so simple, but so relevant. Sometimes as Christians grow and maybe become weary, they want something deeper, something more profound. It's like the simple known truth isn't good enough anymore. I love hearing new ways to learn about God and new perspectives on getting know him and how to grown in a relationship with him. It's humbling and creates a deeper understanding of God for me. I love taking somewhat "simple" messages and going deeper on my own. And that's what I'm doing here. The verse that we read from during this week was 1 John 1:1-10 and is as follows:

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we looked upon and have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life--the life was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was made manifest to us--that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. if we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his work is not in us."

I just challenge those who read this to meditate over this word and let the Lord speak to you on a personal level about what He wants you to take from this passage. As my boyfriend Branden would say, "Get out your Bible and read the physical words on the page that way you can underline and really take in the word." If you are lazy like me, feel free to just read it here, but there is something about taking out your Bible and reading it for yourself (I apologize for any typos).