Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“We know that we are God’s children, and that the whole world lies under the power of the evil one.”
NL Daily Devotion for Thursday, August 1, 2024
by R. M. Fergus, Clergy Stuff
It seems like it sometimes, doesn’t it? The writer of 1 John’s grim pronouncement that the evil one is calling all the shots in the world casts a cloud over everything if we let it. If we allow ourselves to engage in doomscrolling online, obsessive watching of news coverage (heavily biased toward the negative in order to suck us in on behalf of advertisers), or pointless, self-righteous, knee-jerk arguments with people who don’t instantly agree with our point of view, we wind up loudly proclaiming to ourselves and those around us that not only is the evil one in charge of everything, there is absolutely nothing we can do about it.
It's not true.
Yes, the “world” as the writer of 1 John continues to talk about it, does everything it can to convince us that we need to obsessively focus on ourselves and what we can “get” at the expense of the rest of creation. And yes, this is the essential nature of evil. BUT we live in a time when Jesus has already conquered evil on the cross (the already) and evil still runs rampantly around until such time as everything comes to a close at the “end of the age” (the not yet). In this time in the tension between the already and the not yet, God calls us into action. As God’s children, we can facilitate the “inbreaking of the reign of God” any time we act in love and service for another, any time we take a stand on behalf of the struggling, any time we speak truth to the powers of “the world” and work for change. Don’t let our media-drenched society convince you it’s a lost cause. Pessimists never change anything. Optimists—who are generally realists, not idealists—do.
What opportunities do I have today to allow God’s reign to break through into the world?
