Devotional 261208

Dear brothers and sisters,
How was your Christmas celebration? I hope you had an enjoyable time to spend with your family and loved ones. Today, I have a day off to rest and run some errant at home. Starting tonight, we are going to have a Missions Conference that will be held at Sharaton Hotel of Burlingame. It is a 4 days conference with participants coming as far as Canada. Pray that the work of the Holy Spirit will stir the fire of His missions among the participating churches and all the Missions organizations, including GOI. Please remember me in your prayers since I will be leading the morning worship and prayer time each day, and do translation for all evening speakers. May God cleanse me of my sins so that I will be available for His use to be a channel of His blessings to all!

The Bible says, "If we walk in the light, as He is in the light the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). To have mistaken ‘conscious freedom from sin’ for ‘deliverance from sin by the Atonement’ is a great error. No man knows what sin is until he is born again. Sin is what Jesus Christ faced on Calvary. The evidence that I am delivered from sin is that I know the real nature of sin in me. It takes the last reach of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, that is, the impartation of His absolute perfection, in order to make a man know what sin is (under the light of His Perfection).

The Holy Spirit applies the Atonement to us in the unconscious realm as well as in the realm of which we are totally conscious, and it is only when we get a grasp of the unrivalled power of the Spirit in us that we understand the meaning of 1 John 1:7, "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin." This does not refer to conscious sin only, but to the tremendously profound understanding of sin which only the Holy Spirit in me realizes.

If I walk in the light as God is in the light, not in the light of my conscience, but in the light of God - if I walk there, with nothing folded up, then there comes the amazing revelation, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses me from all sin so that God Almighty can see nothing to censure in me. In my consciousness it works with a keen poignant knowledge of what sin is. The love of God at work in me makes me hate with the hatred of the Holy Spirit all that is not in keeping with God's holiness. To walk in the light means that everything that is of the darkness drives me closer into the centre of the light.

O Holy Spirit, help me walk in Your Light as our Triune God is in the Light! The Holiness of God does not only make us avoid carnal sins, but to actively participate in His Goodness and His Perfection as well. This is something beyond what man can accomplish because it is the divine work of the Holy Spirit. We can make our best effort to obey His Word and His guidance. But to participate in His Perfection is the desire and work of the Holy Spirit.

May God grant us the desire to yield to Him in doing what He desires us to do each day and in the year to come!

Love you in Christ,
Lawrence