Friday, January 20, 2006

Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

On a cold wet night, you’re tired, and you’re half asleep, and you’ve just gotten into bed and you’re comfy and snug, you don’t want to be disturbed by someone banging on your door, do you? (Cf. Song of Solomon 5:2-6.)

 

But suppose that’s a capital “S” and the Someone is your divine Lover. You’re so snug and comfy spiritually that you’re satisfied like you are. His “knocking” bothers you.

 

But the Someone knocking and knocking persistently finally leaves. It grieves Him to do so; but Scripture does say that He can be grieved and driven away (Eph. 4:30). His name is “Immanuel,.... ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23). He is forever human as well as forever divine. He is so-o-o patient, but not infinitely so. We fool ourselves tragically if we assume that His patience is never ending. It isn’t.

 

Meanwhile, you have some change of heart while lying snug in your warm bed; you mature a bit in your thinking. You stop considering only your own selfish comfort in bed. A miracle in your own heart begins to take place—you actually begin to think of Him, that Someone outside in the cold, wet, hungry, and lonely for you, knocking on your door, wanting to come in, to you. He loves you! And you have callously kept Him out there in the wet and cold while you luxuriate in your feelings of self-satisfaction. “I am rich,.... and have need of nothing,” you have been saying to your soul (cf. Rev 3:17).

 

This biblical Old Testament scene is what the faithful and true Witness is thinking of when He writes that great seventh Letter to the “angel of the church of the Laodiceans” (Rev. 3:14-20).

 

If He has spent several years knocking, knocking, could you blame Him if he walks away so when you finally get up to open the door, he is gone? If Ephesians says He can be “grieved,” that walking away is not to be wondered at.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.

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