Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

Have you ever been close to losing your life, either from sickness or
an accident? And you have realized that your life has been an
undeserved bonus?

The faith of Jesus in God’s plan of justification teaches that lesson

in its truest dimension: “The love [agape] of Christ constrains us;
because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died” (2
Cor.
5:14). It’s so obvious that you wonder you didn’t see it long ago:

(1) Christ died for the world, for everyone (1 Cor. 15:3). That’s
true.

(2) It’s equivalent to saying that if He had not “died for all,”
then
all would themselves have had to die.

(3) In other words, death would have been the inevitable end of
everyone, “all,” because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.
6:23).  Sin
kills; the poison sting is in the sin itself. The end has always been
wrapped up in the sinning. It’s not an arbitrary, malicious
condemnation on the part of God.

(4) That “death” is what Jesus described in our beloved text of
John
3:16--to “perish.” As 2 + 2 = 4, the logic is inescapable:  if
“One”
“perished” in place of all perishing, then He saved “all” from
perishing, and “all” can see themselves in a new light: they have
escaped that terrible fate because of how He “perished” for them.

(5) The death that Jesus died is the “perishing” kind--what the
Bible
says is “the second death” (Rev. 2:11; 20:14). You came within a
hair’s
breadth of suffering it yourself, except that Christ “perished” in
it
for you. That’s the death He died.

(6) Now you are “constrained” to deny self and to live only for
Him.
Now “easy” to be saved and “hard” to be lost make sense--all
because of
that “love” (agape).

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