Be Still And Know

1 John 1:8-9 'If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to God, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.' John couldn’t have been more blunt. If we claim to be sinless then we’re lying. Presumably there were people in John’s day who were saying precisely that and he knew it was such a dangerous point of view that he had to be decisive in his language. We can’t be exactly sure who these people were but, in every age, there have been people who have claimed to be perfect. We certainly know that there were gnostic groups around in John’s time who believed that they had special knowledge and were not touched by sin. The fact is, we are all sinners, and we all need to own this fact. We might like to blame our parents, our upbringing, our education, the government or the weather but, at the end of the day, we must take responsibility and acknowledge that we have sinned. We have deliberately gon