Chapter Six - Honesty
by Dane C Ortlund
Make it stand out
Honesty
Connected
We are connected to other Christians. We share a commonality in Jesus.
We are all the body of Christ.
Ephesians 4:15-16 - We are to grow up in every way into him who Is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
The most important reality for my growth in Christ is honesty.
Walking in the Light
1 John 1:7 - If we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one anothre, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
John is saying in Chapter 1:5-10 that walking in the light is be honest with each other.
It is acknowledgement of our sins.
To stay in the dark with our failures and not doing the painful, humiliating and liberting work of bringing those failures out we will restrict growth in Jesus. Sins foster and grow in the dark but wither and die in the light.
Two Kinds of Honesty
Explicit - outright lies
Implicit - self projection of moral success
Walking in the light is killing the parade and collapsing into transparency.
Everything in us resists this.
Objections
This leads us not into exhaustive vulnerability but redemptive vulnerability.
It is easier to under confesss than over confess. It takes wisdom.
Find a brother in Christ I can confess to.
Healing in this way is not immediate like God’s forgiveness. That is unhealthy pressure and growth cannot happen because of our own.
What happens when we become honest with another person. Two circles of what we know to be and what we represent to be overlap. We just become a single circle. One Paul. I become whole.
Fellowship with One Another
The hell of aloneness!
Extrovert or Introvert God designed us for human fellowship.
Sorrow is lessened when shared together. Joy is doubled when celebrated together.
We commonly substitute harmful behaviors for the longing of human fellowship.
We are called into the light, into the joy of humility and honesty with each other.
Walls crash down in the light.
Cleansing from All Sin
We are cleansed by the blood of Jesus. It is the only reason we will make it to heaven.
It is a one time, permanent, cascading cleansing.
Example: covered in mud, could I pick it all off? Or just jump in the lake? I can’t scrape myself clean. It takes a plunging.
Sin still happens in many ways but that doesn’t take away that cleansing.
For fallen sinners, justice must be done if we are to be put right with our Creator once more.
Jesus died for us. His blood or ours? He was treated as dirty so that I can be treated as clean.
I feel dirty. My representation of self is at odds with my deepest visceral experience.
I must believe that I’ve been cleansed. Take the power away from the devil and his lies.
Honesty Fuels Feeling Forgiven
To walk in the light of honesty allows us to feel the grace and forgiveness more deeply.
The same pride that hinders us from being honest with others is what hinders our belief.
