What Is Our Track Record? (1 John 3:4)

“Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4)

The local news today seems to be flooded with a laundry list of criminals with long arrest records. Why is this? Why do we insist upon multiplying wrongdoing? Those who stand under the condemnation of the Law continue to wage war against the Law, continue to persist in wrongdoing. Those who love the darkness have a strange attraction to more darkness because their works are evil. Like a farmyard pig, we enjoy rolling around in the mud, don’t we?

Herein lies the beauty of John’s message. Christians have been set free from the condemnation of the law. We no longer stand as one condemned; we stand as one adopted. Our legal relationship has changed from one of punishment to one of parental love. The law written on our hearts is now one that drives us to the cross to be conformed to the One upon the cross. Now shunning the darkness, we have a desire to bask in the light of God’s presence that “it may be clearly seen that our works have been carried out in God.” (John 3:21) The life of a Christian is now one defined not by lawlessness, but by law keeping. Albeit imperfect, the warp and woof of our life is now freedom to be conformed to Him.

John forces us to ask the question - what drives us? Are we lawless or law-keeping? Are we held under the bondage of the law, driven by sin and lawlessness? Or do our works declare that we are those who have been born of God? Do we labor today under the condemnation of the Law, or do we prosper under the Law of liberty?