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Morning Devotion for the Season of Easter

April 26, 2023

Invitatory

Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be for ever. Amen.

Reading - 1 John 5:1-5

Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

Meditation - Winnie Smith

Spiritual Warfare is a term I have not used a lot in my life. It is a concept I am still trying to understand. St. Augustine, one of the most significant early Church Fathers, described two types of angels existing in our world, each of which describes a “side” in this ongoing spiritual conflict: “The one company burns with holy love of God; the other smolders with the foul desire for its own exaltation…The one brings merciful aid, or just punishment, in obedience to God’s bidding; the other seethes with the lust to subdue and to injure, at the behest of its own arrogance” (City of God, Augustine of Hippo). Augustine describes God’s angels as those focused on God, and the others - belonging to the Devil? - as focused on themselves. Seems simple enough.

In today’s reading from the First Letter of John, the evangelist writes, “whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith.” This seems to pit us, God’s children, in a spiritual battle against the world. One one level I understand this. The world, as we have come to understand and govern it, has a lot of flaws. We judge everything, we develop our own rules and codes that we claim exist to make the world better, we allow the busy-ness of our lives and our own expectations and standards to become more important than God. It often feels like we as believers are supposed to fight against these impulses of the world. But at the same time, God created this world and all that is in it. Think of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son…” God so loved the world. We cannot possibly believe that it’s us against the world if God lovingly created that world.

So what do these words from the letter of John mean? “For whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” This is not about winning and losing in the way we understand it. The spiritual battle, as I interpret it, is not about dividing the good people from bad. It is first and foremost about believing in Jesus the Son of God and sharing the love of God with the world. It is about making God and God’s love, rather than ourselves, the driving forces in our lives. The victory is not somehow a literal victory, wherein “the world” is defeated - what would that even look like? Victory, instead, is a reordering and refocusing of our own desires and priorities. Victory is putting God at the center of our lives and the world, and working to spread that idea and that refocused worldview out to others. Only by doing that can we win this so-called spiritual battle.

The Lord’s Prayer

Our Father, who art in heaven,

hallowed be thy Name,

thy kingdom come,

thy will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive those

who trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

and the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever. Amen.