Dial Daily Bread

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread":

We have all heard the horrifying stories of people with Alzheimer’s
saying and doing things that we could not imagine them saying or doing
when they were normal and well. A friend of ours when he developed
Alzheimer’s threatened to kill his wife and had to be locked up, and
yet we knew him always as a genuine Christian. And we all have known of

people who when they have a stroke, act in a bizarre, ornery way, when
we have known them previously as being gentle Christians. Sometimes
when under an anesthetic or drug, decent people have been known to use
language that is indecent.

These remarks on “Dial Daily Bread” are not intended to question
the sincerity of these people’s conversion to Christianity. But this
phenomenon of evil words or acts coming out involuntarily raises the
issue of Bible sanctification. Paul prays for us a total sanctification
in 1 Thess. 5:23: “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I
pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless
unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

What does Paul mean? Obviously, the initial experience of conversion or
of justification by faith, is good in itself; but it must deepen and
extend throughout the mind and heart until there is no hidden portion
that is left unaffected, uncleansed. This is why sanctification is a
daily work of the Holy Spirit, requiring a daily surrender to Him,
until every nook or cranny of the heart is exposed to the merciless
light that shines from the cross of Christ, and every egocentric
motivation is made painfully distinct, so it can be repented of. A
person may die with that process of being sanctified “wholly” still
uncompleted; and we trust that person’s soul with the Lord’s mercy
in the final judgment. But how could any of us “stand” in the final
“great day of the Lord” when Jesus returns if there are sinful dark secrets
of evil still left in the heart not yet “sanctified wholly”?

Wouldn’t that bring shame on our Savior, like a good Christian
threatening to kill his wife, or saying indecent words? Thank God we
have a new day, TODAY--a new opportunity to be sanctified!

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