Victory Through Faith

Ephesus, near the end of the first century. An old man is dictating to churches that are being pulled apart by teachers with a more sophisticated account of Jesus than his, and he is the last one left who was actually there.

He writes like it. He starts the letter by insisting on his hands: that which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled. He calls his readers little children, over and over, which is either sentimental or the exact word of a man who has outlived everybody. Jerome passed on the story that at the very end he had to be carried in and could only say the same sentence, love one another, and when they asked him why always that, he said it was the Lord's command and if it were done, it would be enough. Whether or not the story is exact, it is the portrait the letters give.

And that is who is writing this line about victory, which matters, because it is not the sentence of a man on a winning streak. Notice how he puts it. Whatsoever is born of God overcometh the world: the neuter, the birth itself, not the strength of the person born. Then, and this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith, in a tense that treats it as already accomplished. And in case anyone should think faith means general confidence, he immediately says what it is faith in: who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God? The victory is not your grip. It is what you are gripping.

So change your hold on the one situation you have been trying to muscle through. Put into words what you believe about God at that exact spot, then behave like someone who believes it: answer the message, show up, keep the thing you said you would do. You are not fighting toward a victory. You are standing inside one that was won by somebody else.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 326 is Running With Footmen (Jeremiah 12:5).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna