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Light Before Love


           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 yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by 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. (I John 1:4-7)

           Everyone thinks of I John as being about love, but he doesn’t begin there. He begins with light (just as he begins in the Gospel of John.) I believe there is good reason for this: love is not blind. Infatuation and lust are blind, but love is not. In order to have fellowship with God, in order to love God and to best receive His love, we must walk in the light. It is only then that we can have fellowship with one another. It is only then that we can be purified. Being purified is necessary in order to love as well and as fully as possible.
          Don’t misunderstand me. I am not saying that if you aren’t Christian, you cannot love at all. I am saying that everyone’s capacity to love is more limited than it should be, but that it is only as we walk in the light, only as we live in light of the truth that we can reach our potential for loving. Walking in the truth is not only necessary for the lover, it is the lover’s goal for the beloved. A lover does not stand by idly while the beloved insists that sticking a knife into a live socket is safe. Truth and light are vital to love. 
         Some people may say that this must be wrong, because true love is unconditional. If one loves, one loves no matter what. I believe John would agree, and I agree that one loves no matter what, but that doesn’t mean that one doesn’t always seek to bring the beloved into the light, to guide the beloved into the truth. Hannah Hurnard once wrote, “Love is gentle but love is terrible too. The greater the love the less it can tolerate anything that is hurting the beloved. For the perfection of the beloved (us) the Shepherd may have to allow much terrible suffering to perfect the beloved. (He is a consuming fire) (p. 142 of Mountains of Spices)

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