I John - Randy

Verses 6-10:

 6If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. 7But 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.

8If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. 9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.

Integrity, as I read these verses the word Integrity stands out.  I can't  help but think of the times of trying to teach my children that things only get worse when we try to hide them or lie about them. I can remember saying to them, the earlier you admit to what yo have done, the lesser the consequences  and the quicker things are made right.  The longer we hide our wrong doing, the more we lie to cover up our mistakes, the worse things become. I think its possible that  we can hide and cover up something  for so long, that we start to thing its ok, but it never ends up as being ok. Its also true that the longer we continue down this path of concealing our behavior, the more people we hurt.  

So, how does all this relate to the verses above? (Before I go an further, I should declare that I'm speaking to myself here, so this commentary is about Randy and to Randy. I only hope that Randy listens to himself, for once.)  We all want to be saints on Sunday morning, but we are all sinners.  Its not ok to be satisfied or complacent with being a sinner,   sometimes we make statements about being sinners, and we joke about it and we smile or laugh.  But I don't think this is ok, this is not what we are meant or built to be or become.   Of course we  are all sinners, we know this, but this doesn't give us a "pass".

Back to the verses above, I have an integrity problem.  I want to be a Jesus Follower, but on my terms :(. I want to be a Jesus Follower on Sunday morning, or when I'm in the presence of other Jesus Followers. But what about Saturday afternoon when I with friends, or on Monday morning when I'm at work, or at a business dinner on Wednesday night?  Or even worse and maybe more incriminating, how about when I'm alone, how do I spend my time, what  do I read, or watch on TV?  So you see, (again this is Randy talking to Randy) its not ok, and its not "just the way it is" and more importantly, I know I am forgiven, but maybe I'm not excused from being accountable. 

So to be a Christian, a Jesus Follower, means having Integrity, being sincere and loyal to being the best Jesus Follower that I can be.

In my case, I always come back to the exercise that Nathanael suggested I try, to list all of my sins and to confess them.  This taught me, that for me, its not necessarily about stopping doing the "don'ts" (although I am guilty of my fair share of these), but about starting to do and practice the "DOs" .  I think if I put the required time and energy into doing the DOs, I will have less time to fall into Don'ts.