Throughout my younger life, I yearned for an intimate and personal relationship with God. Despite my best efforts, and especially during high school, I was deeply troubled by my lack of personal purity and unclean thoughts.
Even though during this time most people thought my life was exemplary, being very involved in the church and youth activities, I knew I was not personally reconciled with God and my sins separated me from Him.
So often, I confessed my sins before the Lord, never experiencing relief or victory.
However, in my first year after leaving school, someone gave me a book written by a Dutch Reformed minister on KwaSizaBantu mission. Everything I read made perfect sense to me and instantly I knew this is the life I want to lead.
Approximately a year later, after calculating the cost, I drove to someone’s house. Knocked on the front door. When the man opened the door, I told him I am here to walk in the light. A process started in my life of bringing my most intimate and personal sins to the light and receiving prayer. Moreover, by God’s grace, I received deliverance and experienced victory.
I knew a freedom I never knew existed. I also decided there and then not to even look at a girl until the Lord shows me who my wife is. I was around nineteen or twenty; at 35 the Lord showed me in a special and specific way who I should marry.
Walking in the light is also sharing your burdens, fears, expectation, and disappointments and laying victories at the feet of Jesus.
Do I fall short? Do I disappoint the Holy Spirit and people? Are there sins of omission and commission in my life?
Most definitely! However, through God’s grace I can do restitution and ask forgiveness. Moreover, and most importantly, reconcile with the Lord Jesus, and enter into His light.
Do I ever stop striving? By God’s grace, no (Philippians 3:12-14).
Personal purity is key for an effective Christian life and ministry.
Cobus Greyling
1 John 1:7
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, purifies us from all sin.
1 Thessalonians 4:3-5
It is God’s will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God.
Proverbs 28:13
He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper. But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion.
Psalm 90:8
You have placed our iniquities before You. Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
