The Joshua Victor Theory

    Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed, Alleluia! Easter called us to trust Jesus’ reliable Word, and witness how our Risen Good Shepherd comes to His beloved sheep. These next six weeks of the Easter season we’ll study 1 st John to explore Jesus’ resurrection gifts and blessings to His church. In 1 John 1, I want to zero in on verses 3-7. They tell the effect of the resurrection message: “ that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice 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 cleanses...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. In many churches today, the word “sin” is either missing from their vocabulary, or largely ignored. And this is from the pastors themselves. Sin is too negative—we’d rather focus only on the positive. Or talking about sin might offend us or make us feel bad about ourselves. Imagine if a doctor felt the same about diagnosing and treating diseases, or cancer! Would such a doctor be allowed to practice medicine, if he only sought to make the patient think better of themselves, while ignoring the disease and its treatment? Now who really does the diagnosing though? It’s God’s own Word that makes the diagnosis of our hearts and our lives. It’s God’s own Word that identifies sin and prescribes a cure—both to the heart of the pastor and to the hearers of God’s Word—you! But why should we take sin so seriously anyway? Isn’t it enough to focus only on the positive? Well, gloom about the problem with no word about the ...