19. This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20. Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21. But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.

Inside our mother’s womb, there is no light. We are born from darkness into light. As we live our lives we choose to live in light or move back into darkness. It appears at times as if the world is being overturned and overrun by darkness. There is a combat being raged both for our world and for our soul between forces of darkness and the light of truth.

John said the verdict is in. Unrighteous people love darkness because their hearts are full of evil. People who do evil wait until the sun goes down, or they act in secret out of sight of witnesses. Some are ashamed of their actions, but many more feel no shame; they simply do not want to suffer the consequences of their actions. They want to be able to steal, to burn and destroy and to satisfy their sinful desires in secret and without public condemnation.

Belief in Jesus requires us to move our actions out of the darkness and into the light. Living in the light does not guarantee that our actions will always be right or that we will never sin by missing the mark. It does require that we never use darkness to hide deliberate unrighteousness. Living in the light does not require us to drag all of our old sins out of the darkness into the light. Our old deeds have been confessed to God and forgiven, and barring the need for restitution, it is often best they remain in the past. Living in the light is not about what we have done; it is about what we are doing.