Walking in the light

1John 1:5-10

5.This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.
6. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.
7. 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.
8. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
9. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.
10. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.

John gets right to the point in verses 5 - 10. God doesn't mix light and dark. We are either in the light or we are not. We can make all the claims we want but our pride, our ego, our good intentions, our excuses, and our pretenses don't put us in the light. We have to keep coming back to John here to recall that this facade doesn't deceive anyone but ourselves.

And what does John say about this sin? That when we confess it, God is faithful and just and will forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. So John turns his readers back to the wonderful character of God and expands their understanding of what it means that He is light. God is faithful, just, forgiving, and cleansing.

Are you trusting Jesus for the forgiveness of sin?

Intergenerational conflict continued .....

Shortly after I posted my last blog on intergeneration conflict in the workplace, I came across another article written by respected author and teacher D.A. Carson dealing with Generational Conflict in Ministry.  Well worth the read, but in in summary:

1. Listen to criticism in a non-defensive way
2. Be prepared to ask the question, “What are we doing in our church, especially in our public meetings, that is not mandated by Scripture and that may, however unwittingly, be functioning as a barrier to getting the gospel out?
3. Always focus most attention on the most important thing
4. Work hard at developing and fostering good relations with those from the other generations

Again - not easy, but necessary if we want to live "Corem Deo"

Living with Intergenerational conflict

One of the 'tweets' that came across on my Twitter feed this morning pointed me to an article on "Six guidelines for resolving intergenerational conflict at work".  I was intrigued as I have been experiencing something similar in past weeks so went ahead and 'clicked' on the link. Most of what I read I could easily identify with.  Here are some of them:

1. Traditionals and Baby Boomers don’t like to be micromanaged.
2. Baby Boomers value teamwork, cooperation, and buy-in, while Gen Xers prefer to make a unilateral decision and move on–preferably solo.
3. If you have a knowledgeable Boomer who is frustrated by a Gen Yer’s lack of experience coupled with his sense of entitlement, turn the Boomer into a mentor.
4. Each generation has valuable lessons to teach the next. For example, Traditionals and Boomers have a wealth of knowledge and tricks of the trade that younger workers need. Generation X employees are widely known for their fairness and mediation abilities. Generation Y workers are technology wizards. And Linksters hold clues to future workplace, marketing, and business trends.

Ok - so I am a boomer and report to a Gen X'r so I can easily see how this works and there is almost always a generational component to conflict, not only vertically but also on the horizontal level and as the article states, "we have to recognizing new ways to resolve it". The article continues by making good suggestions like mentoring and learning from each other; finding commonality; sharing perceptions etc.  It is however so much easier said than done and I am still leaning how to do so.

As I was reading this and thinking through it I kept reminding myself that over and above all the good suggestions is that I have to continue to live "Corem Deo".  How easy it is for the natural man to get in the way and so I naturally turned to the Word of God to see what additional insights I could find:

I start with Ephesians 6:5-9:

⁵ Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, ⁶not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, ⁷rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, ⁸knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. ⁹Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him. 

Ha - yes, sometimes I do feel like a slave - but joking aside, we see further down that Paul clarifies by saying " whether he is a slave or free".  The theme is repeated in so many places; Col 3:22; 1 Peter 2:18 and 1 Timothy 6:1 to name a few. 


It's not easy to live live out this lifestyle, but by the grace of God. And as we learned in church yesterday from:  2 Corinthians 5:14 - "For the love of Christ controls us..."