August 31, Evening

C. H. Spurgeon · Modern retelling

"If we walk in the light, as He is in the light." — 1 John 1:7 · KJV

"As He is in the light!" Can we ever reach this? Shall we ever walk as clearly in the light as He whom we call "Our Father," of whom it is written, "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all"? Certainly this is the model set before us, for the Savior Himself said, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect"; and though we may feel we can never rival the perfection of God, yet we are to seek after it and never be satisfied until we reach it. The young artist, grasping his first pencil, can hardly hope to equal Raphael or Michelangelo; but if he had no noble ideal before his mind, he would attain only to something mean and ordinary. But what is meant by saying the Christian is to walk in light as God is in the light? We take it to mean likeness, not degree. We are as truly in the light, as heartily, as sincerely, as honestly in the light, though we cannot be there in the same measure. I cannot dwell in the sun — it is too bright a place for my dwelling — but I can walk in the sun's light; and so, though I cannot reach that perfection of purity and truth which belongs to the Lord of hosts by nature as the infinitely good, yet I can set the Lord always before me and strive, by the help of the indwelling Spirit, after conformity to His image. That famous old commentator John Trapp says, "We may be in the light as God is in the light for quality, but not for equality." We are to have the same light, and are as truly to have it and walk in it as God does; but as for equality with God in His holiness and purity, that must be left until we cross the Jordan and enter into the perfection of the Most High. Note that the blessings of sacred fellowship and perfect cleansing are bound up with walking in the light.