If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and don't tell the truth.
It's interesting how that there seems to be, so often, this inconsistency in people's lives. We say one thing and do another, or we do one thing and say another. We have one of these little girls, and I have dozens of them that I just adore, and they're always coming up to me and saying, "Hi Chuck," or whatever, and I just love these little girls and little fellows too. It's so neat and it's so cute, really the things and concepts in their little minds. And there's this one little girl, this morning, probably somewhere between two and three years old, and she told her mother, "I want to go the church and see the God Father." And she was talking about me, and she thought I was God's father, and she said, "Well, who is God's Father?" you know.Another little girl that always has to say hi to me whenever comes to church and come up and give me a hug and a kiss. The other day the family was going off on Sunday and so they said, "Well, no, we can't go to church today because we are going to take a trip today, and we are not going to be able to go to church." And she put her hands on her hips and said, "Damn, I wanted to go to church." Inconsistencies, they show up early. It's not always what I say, it's what I am; it's what I'm doing.Now I can know, in fact, God wants me to know, He wants me to be assured. Part of this epistle is to bring me assurance. "I have written these things unto you that believe that you may know that you have eternal life." How can we know, how do we know what we know? As we go through this epistle, we find there are many ways by which we can know certain truths.