This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but men loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God.

John 3:19-21

This is the verdict.  Light has come.  Men didn’t want it.  They wanted something different.

The difference here is important.  Jesus contrasts the two walks.  One is those who do evil.  The other is those who do Truth.

Truth is different than good.  Remember the Garden from Genesis 3.  There were two trees.  One was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the other was the tree of life.

There are many people who think that they are doing “good”, when in fact what they are doing is really evil.  There are many people who don’t care, so long as their works aren’t analyzed by others.

Yet, Jesus draws the distinction in the two lives as the difference between doing good and doing truth.  If we are living according to a standard, before a just judge, we have nothing to fear.  We have nothing to hide.  We have nothing to be afraid of.

Since Jesus has all authority, we are proved right when we speak, because He vindicates us.

David wrote, in Psalm 119:126, “It is time for you to act, O LORD, your law is being broken.”  When God’s laws are being broken, it is time for Him to act, not us.  When we rest in that, when we rest in the fact that God is our all seeing, perfect Father, when we do what is right out of the Spirit of Truth, we are not ashamed of what we have done.  If, in the greater light, we see what we have done is wrong, we humble ourselves, repent quickly, and change.  Why?  Because we made an honest mistake.  Even David, conceived in sin as the fourth generation after a harlot, confessed this.  He didn’t have the blood of Jessu to break generation curses in the Old Covenant, and when one of those demonic hooks came after him, he made a mistake.  A big one at that.  But, because he operated out of the Spirit of Truth, when it was revealed to him through the help of a prophet named Nathan, he humiliated himself, and cried out to God.  Psalm 51 is a part of that cry.

Psalm 51:1-3

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;

according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.

For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Because David had the Spirit of Truth, He could not hide his sin once it was exposed.  As painful and tormenting as it was, he knew he could not hide his sin, hide his guilt, or deny his shame.  His only recourse was to go to the one who mattered, to fall upon the one he had trusted in his whole life, and to appeal to his never ending mercy.

Guilt is to sin what pain is to a cut.  It cannot be counselled away.  If you give pain medication, you only cover up what the body is trying to communicate.  If you medicate guilt with psychotropic drugs and pharmaceuticals, you do not solve the problem, you merely stuff cotton into the emotions of the soul.

The only remedy for guilt, shame, and sin is the cross, and if it is not powerful enough to do it’s work, it is not worth following.  Only let us not be found guilty of following after unbelief.

Jesus Himself said, no one is good except except God Himself.  We cannot be good except by the movement of the Spirit through us.  He is the one that is good.

We must live with honesty.  Integrity.

It has been said that the biggest need for moving in the Kingdom is transparency.   This is the same message as the message of simplicity.

Growing up, I was taught that hypocrisy was to say one thing and do another.  As I have learned since then, while that is a part of it, it is more a picture of an actor.  One who wears a mask is the more precise definition.  While this applies to the first definition, it also applies to one who is one way before men, and another way in private.  It is a picture of the person who is one way outwardly, yet inwardly is something else.

When what is on the outside does not match the inside, you have neither integrity nor transparency.  When you cannot live out what is on the inside, you either are dishonest, or simply do not have the faith and hence the courage to live out what God has put inside.

If the inner life is whole and sanctified by the Lord, then to live your life out of any other thing will cost you who you are.  You will never be satisfied with life.

Perfect self expression of a corrupt heart is absolute perversion.  Perfect expression of the saved spirit within a man is the image of Jesus Christ.  It is Faith that makes the difference.  You are that person.  That is right inside there.  Can you separate it from the earthly life?  Can you live by the Spirit and so not gratify the desires of the flesh?

But, if we try to be honest.  If we try to live out of His heart and mind within us.  If we endeavor to live by the Truth revealed in Jesus Christ, we live as free men, and nothing can harm us.  We will trample upon snakes, and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy.  Even if the Lord must discipline us as dear children along the way, so that we find His perfect heart in all circumstances, we only follow the Master in learning obedience in the things we suffer.

Yet, this we too take from Him, knowing that it His kindness that leads us to repentance, and will bring us to a greater light and ability to walk in the Truth, the person of Jesus Christ.