Claiming

A vacuum cleaner salesman came by the house one night. I lived out in the country at the time and only had a handful of neighbors. The man made idle chit chat for a bit and before showing me his vacuum or even talking about it he began telling me how impressed my neighbors were about it. He claimed to know three of them so I began to talk with him a bit. It didn’t take long to realize that he didn’t know the neighbors at all and that he had only pulled their names from a phone book. It’s easy to claim something isn’t it. All you have to do is say it. But proving it is another thing! 1 John 1:5-7 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 and yet walk in darkness, we lie and do not live out 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.
Claiming to know Jesus is easy to say. You just say it right? But actually knowing him is another thing. It doesn’t take long to tell if someone knows him or not. How we live our lives is the proof. If we walk in darkness, meaning we go on living our old sinful way of living, then our claim to know Jesus is just that. A claim. But if we walk in the light, meaning we are going in the opposite direction from our old sinful ways, then it’s easy to see that we are in fellowship with Jesus. It’s vital to study God’s word, be in fellowship with each other, and to pray so that we can live in the light and get to know Christ more and more! Lord, help those of us that claim to know you, live out our lives in such a way that it’s easy to see that it’s more than just a claim but that it’s true!!
Have a joy filled day!!