"Dial Daily Bread" will be "off the air" for a few days due to travel. Thank you for your patience, and we'll be in touch soon. --The "Dial Daily Bread" Staff
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Have you ever wondered why so many of the Apostle Paul's letters got into the Bible? He never dreamed he was writing part of what we believe is God's Word! The reason is not that Paul was a naturally good person. On his own before he understood the gospel, he took part in a dastardly murder (Acts 7:58-8:1); and he confesses that he had coveted his neighbor's wife and probably was hooked on the pornography of his day (read Rom 7:7, 8).
How come such a man ends up writing a major part of the New Testament? The answer is not that he was made of better stuff than any of us (Luther wisely says that we are all made of the same dough); no, the difference is simply that Paul SAW something that it seems "we" have not yet seen. And what he SAW motivated him to a life of self-sacrificing devotion to the Son of God that puts him in a special place of inspiration to all of us. In 2 Corinthians 11 he tells us of what he endured for Jesus: beatings more than any other apostle, in jail more often, nearly dying many times, five times getting the Jews' 39 lashes with their leather strap laced with lead, three times "beaten with rods," "once stoned [not with drugs but with literal rocks]," surviving three shipwrecks (each equivalent to an airline crash), clinging to wreckage in the Mediterranean for a whole 24 hours, with endless "weariness and painfulness, ... hunger and thirst, ... in cold and nakedness," and all this with a night and day anxiety on his heart that forced him to write almost endless letters to young Christians to encourage them (vss. 23-28).
Please don't put this man on a pedestal as somebody who must remain forever unique! The Bible insists that in these last days there will be "144,000" who truly duplicate his heart-devotion to the Son of God for they too will "follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth" (Rev. 14:1-5). They will reject Satan's alluring but subtle "mark of the beast" and will choose to receive the opposite, "the seal of God" (7:1-4; 13:15-17; 14:9-12).
And here's some great Good News: Paul prayed to the "Father" of Christ that He would privilege us to SEE what he saw--the four grand dimensions of the AGAPE (love) of Christ, its "breadth, and length, and depth, and height" (Eph. 3:14-21). If you are praying for a new Lexus or a vacation trip to Hawaii, that "Father in heaven" may or not grant your request (depending on what He knows is best for you!); but for sure He will "grant you" to SEE what Paul prayed you might see ... if only you are WILLING to see.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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