Daily Devotional #39 (1 John 4:4-6)

Today, we come to 1 John 4:4-6, which reads, "⁴ You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. ⁵ They are from the world and therefore speak from the viewpoint of the world, and the world listens to them. ⁶ We are from God, and whoever knows God listens to us; but whoever is not from God does not listen to us. This is how we recognize the Spirit of truth and the spirit of falsehood."

Look at the first word in each of these three verses. What do you see? Note that each verse begins with a pronoun ... You, They and We. Three separate groups, which are not the same. Notice, the first group. "little children." These are said to be "from God" in v.4.  Note how they overcame the false teaching ... v.4 reads, "You, little children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world." The power to overcome the Evil One is the power of the Lord Jesus Himself. Our faith must always turn, in hours of darkness, to the One who gave us the Scriptures. We must be careful to evaluate all things through the lens of His definition of all things, because He is greater than the evil one.

The Bible must be more precious to us than life itself. We must not just come to the scriptures every day. No, no, we must come to Him through the scriptures, asking Him to write His word on our hearts. Most often, His word is most precious to us, when we have been granted a hunger and thirst for Him. And that hunger and thirst comes on the heels of some kind of hardship.

I am reminded of the story of Hien Pham who was a Vietnamese Christian who worked as a translator for the missionaries in the 1960’s and 70’s during the war.  After Vietnam fell, Hien was captured by the Viet Cong and imprisoned. 

For a long time, while in prison, Hien held on to his faith, remembering the words of his Bible that he could no longer read. Until the day, when Hien began to wonder, “Maybe there is no such thing as God.”  Soon his questions became convictions, and one night he decided not to say his prayers. After a while, he decided to no longer believe in God.  “I’m through with God,” he said to himself that night. “When I wake up in the morning, it will be no more God for me and no more prayer.”

The next morning, Hien, the newest atheist in the camp, stood in line as the commanding officer of the prison barked out the assignments for the day.  Hien’s job that day was to clean the latrines.  He cringed when he heard it.  This was the ultimate form of indignity for the prisoners.  The latrines were filthy and Hien would spend the entire day cleaning that filth.

The soiled toilet paper was not flushed through the primitive plumbing, but was put into waste baskets.  One of Hien’s last jobs of the day was to empty these waste baskets.  All day long he had labored with reminders to reinforce his new belief that there is no God.  How indeed could a loving God leave him here and not rescue him from this living hell?  But as Hien’s work for the day was coming to an end, something in the last trash can happened to catch his eye. It was a piece of paper with printed type.  Anxious to read language once again, he looked around to make sure no one was watching.  He then quickly rinsed off the filth and tucked the paper into his pocket.

That night after everyone had fallen asleep, Hien carefully took out his flashlight and removed the still damp paper from his pocket.  In the upper right hand corner he saw printed Romans 8. This was a page from the Bible. In a state of shock, Hien began reading. The first verse he read was Romans 8:28:  “We know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” 

Hien read on: “What then shall we say in response to all this?  If God is for us, who can be against us?  He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?  Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…  No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels or demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, or anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

That night his heart was turned back to the God of eternal life, as Hien read the scriptures once again. The Bible is meant to be like a pane of glass, through which we look and see God. We must be careful to not make it about the glass or the printed page only, for He is the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.