Narrative Lectionary Key Verse for Today
“Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts.”
NL Daily Devotion for Sunday, July 28, 2024
by Dr. Miles Hopgood, Clergy Stuff
Main Idea: Faith is not something we accomplish. Rather, faith is worked in us through the actions of the one in whom we have our faith.
Imagine the following scene: you are leaving the grocery store when, out of nowhere, a car pulls up, and a stranger opens the door saying, “Get in quick!” You start to protest, but they continue, “It’s an emergency; no time to explain!” What do you do? Probably run! At the very least, you’d have some questions. But now imagine the same scenario with one crucial difference: instead of a stranger, it is your oldest and dearest friend who calls to you. Does your response change? Probably! How different this scenario becomes when the one who calls to us changes. Did you decide to doubt one and trust the other? Some thought might have gone into it, but chances are your response was more reflexive than cognitive. Because the choice to trust your friend was not yours. You trusted your friend not because of a decision you made but because of how your friend lived their life for you. It was their history of faithful speech, of trustworthy action, and of loving care that worked trust in you. What you did was simply what sprung naturally from the trust they worked in you.
Trust is the best way we have to understand what it means to have faith, and this aspect of trust is what is being drawn out here in 1 John 5. When the author writes that, “Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony of God in their hearts,” they are pointing us to the origins of faith. Our belief in God is worked into our hearts through the proclamation of what God has done for us. Through the word of God, we hear and come to know who God is, how much God loved us, and what sort of grace God has given us in Jesus Christ. Through these words and deeds, we come to have faith in our hearts, which is nothing less than the testimony of God’s love for us.
Our last verse today is the beginning of the epilogue, which brings us right back to where we began when we heard that, “We are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1:4). Now we see clearly what that joy is, namely the knowledge of all that God has done for us, the love that God has shown for us through these deeds, and the new relationship that has forged by that love born out for us. Our joy is complete when our trust is in God, and this is not our doing. What makes faith a joy is that it has nothing to do with what we have done but everything to do with what God has done for us.
