Love Is Our Defense

From today’s reading:  Children, let no one deceive you. The person who acts in righteousness is righteous, just as he is righteous. Whoever sins belongs to the Devil, because the Devil has sinned from the beginning.  Indeed, the Son of God was revealed to destroy the works of the Devil. No one who is begotten by God commits sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot sin because he is begotten by God. In this way, the children of God and the children of the Devil are made plain; no one who fails to act in righteousness belongs to God, nor anyone who does not love his brother. (1John 3:7-10)

This John makes it clear: anyone who does not love his brother does not belong to God.  That’s quite a penalty.   He says when we sin, we become children of the devil.   Now that’s some condemnation!

There’s no way to appreciate John’s meaning in our times.   He wrote for his community a little after 100 A.D.   Here we are about 1,920 years later.   We live in different times with different concerns and understandings.  Nevertheless, we can learn from John.

“God’s seed” is the Word of God we hear proclaimed at Mass or read in the Bible.  We are to let that seed sprout, grow, and spread always reminding us of the consequences of sin and how we should respond when we do so.  

We cast out the Devil and resist evil when we remember we are “begotten by God” and live accordingly through repentance and asking we be forgiven our trespasses.   The Devil lurks.  Love is our defense.

Deacon David Pierce