The Prayer of Moses (Part 1)

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

How could a good man pray that God would send him to hell? The idea is shocking! Good men pray that God will take them to heaven! Suicide bombers believe they have found a sure path to heaven.
Yes, someone who is stupid, superficial, might carelessly express the silly thought, "Lord, send me to hell!"--someone who has no idea what hell is all about. But someone sober, thoughtful, serious, who knows what's involved in hell?
There was a wonderful man who prayed such a prayer, and God loved him for it. God said, "No, you can't go to hell, I won't let you." But God appreciated that his prayer came from the kind of love in his heart that God has in His heart.
The man? Moses! The kind of love that prompted that unique prayer? Agape! The story is the high water mark of sinners praying to God. In all human history, He had never heard such a prayer. It was proof to God (and to the heavenly universe) that sinful human beings CAN grow up unto "the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13). We don't have to remain little children in comprehension! Yes, children are delightful creatures; we love them. But one whose body develops but whose mind never does, is heartbreaking; a parent can't endure greater pain. A heaven full of overgrown toddlers may seem like a great idea, but God says He wants us to "grow up" in "comprehension" (3:18, 19).
Moses did "grow up" in "comprehending" the heart of God. It meant tears, but God sheds tears, too. And it comforted God to find a man on earth who at least was beginning to understand Him! Israel had committed the corporate sin of sins--they had broken their solemn promise they made to God and had worshipped a golden calf. It meant they were turning their backs on God's plan of salvation and were deliberately going back into the sex orgy "worship" that was ruining the pagan world. And God said, "Enough! I can't forgive them!" That's when Moses stepped in and prayed his strange prayer. More tomorrow.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 29, 2001.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Jesus Suffered for Us "Alone"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

To be alone is something all of us naturally fear. So God's promise is precious: "I will never leave you, nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man can do to me" (Heb. 13:5, 6). But of course there is a "condition": we are not to leave the Lord, nor forsake Him.
The context of God's promise is clear: "It is good that the heart be established by grace" (vs. 9). It will always be "by grace" that we know He has not left nor forsaken us. That grace will motivate us to be loyal to Christ even if we must stand alone in doing so. "Jesus ... suffered [alone] outside the gate. Therefore let us go forth to Him, outside the camp, bearing His reproach [alone]" (vss. 12, 13).
God is not playing tit for tat with us, refusing to stay with us unless we stay with Him; we don't take the initiative, He does. But it is not fair, well, it's impossible, for us to appreciate or realize the presence of God with us unless we appreciate His grace in saving us from the hell that ultimate loneliness will be. When we appreciate how Jesus suffered for us "alone," we are motivated to be loyal to Him even when it seems we are alone in doing so. Peter felt himself "alone" that Thursday night warming himself by the fire while Jesus was being scourged inside the court room, so he wanted to be considered "in" with the crowd of giddy, thoughtless people. It hurt to be alone. But all of God's people, high or low, have somehow been tested so they can demonstrate their loyalty to Christ under stress and apparent loneliness. You could never be happy in heaven without that test!
It may well be when we come to the closing scenes that God's people will each of stand utterly alone in receiving the seal of God when everybody else appears to be receiving the mark of the beast (see Rev. 13:11-17). Elijah was alone on Mt Carmel when it seemed everybody else was either worshipping Baal or was too cowardly to stand with him when the test came (1 Kings 18; true, there were "7000" in Israel who had not bowed their knees to Baal, but in that great test not one had the courage to raise his hand to support Elijah). Elijah's great loyalty in loneliness had something to do with the great honor given him in being translated.
There will be "144,000" (literal or symbolic is not the issue here) in the end who will be as loyal as he was--not because they are "made of sterner stuff" than the rest of us and are "strong," but because in their weakness they have identified with Jesus as He suffered alone for them.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 29, 2000.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

The Church: Visible or Invisible?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Someone asks: Are we sure that the Bible teaches that God's "church" is a visible organization, and not an invisible number of scattered believers?

The only times we read that Jesus mentioned His "church" were twice--Matthew 16:18 and 18:17. He used the word ecclesia, which means "called out," a people designated and separated from the world, defined and denominated in a form that the world could recognize as an entity. The apostles called ancient Israel a "church in the wilderness" (Acts 7:38), and we read that Israel was a visible organization that the world could see as God's denominated people. In Matthew 18 Jesus outlined what should be done if a member in the church disgraces its name--he should be disciplined. Unless the church is organized, this cannot be done.
Paul thought of a beautiful illustration of what the church is--it's a "body." "Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular ... in the church" (1 Cor. 12:12-28).

Possibly the reason for this person's question is the problem of apostasy and worldliness in the church, which is discouraging to a thoughtful, sincere Christian. Please think about Jesus: He is even more pained by this than you are. Be joined to Him by faith, share His heart burden for His church. It's the great crisis of the ages. He wants to lead her to repentance, not to ruin.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 25, 2005.

Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

The Spiritual Disease of Fanaticism

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

To be a fanatic is almost worse than being a sinner. It's easier and more respectable to pray, "God, be merciful to me a sinner!" than to have to pray, "God, be merciful to me, a fool!" The Bible holds out little hope for a fool, but every hope for a sinner. Upright, non-adulterous King Saul confesses, "Behold, I have played the fool, and have erred exceedingly" (1 Sam. 26:21), but he died in despair. David confessed his deep, dark sin of adultery-murder, and was saved (Psalm 51). The spiritual disease of fanaticism is all but incurable because "vain imaginations" crowd out common-sense truth (Rom. 1:21). We never read that King Saul prayed, "God, be merciful to me, a fool!" But that "little hope" is there for the fool if he can bring himself to be honest and lowly enough to pray that almost-unheard-of prayer, because the promise is clear: "Whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered" (Joel 2:32).

Can you imagine someone who was mightily tempted to think that he was a fool? And probably prayed, "Lord save me from being a fool!" Abraham (when he was Abram) had heard the Lord tell him he would become "the father of many nations," would have children in number as the stars, would be a blessing to all the world, etc., etc. And what happened to confirm those grand dreams? Nothing, nothing, decade after decade. Do you suppose he ever wondered if his memory had played him false, that all he had was delusions of grandeur?

A Boy at the age of 12 dreamed of being the Lamb of God, the world's Savior, who heard a Voice from heaven declare Him "My beloved Son." But He ended up after all those dreams of glory apparently like a common criminal--worse than the two thieves crucified with Him--they were just simple sinners; no one scorned them for having delusions of grandeur. But His ridiculers "cast the same in His teeth" (Matt. 27:44).

If you are "a child of Abraham" (Jesus was!) you will be tempted to think that God's promises to unworthy you of answered prayers are delusions of grandeur. Abraham avoided fanaticism because he saw the cross of Christ (John 8:56). That was the twig on El Capitan that he hung on to. No one can be moved by Calvary and end up a fanatic.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 20, 2003.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

God's Plan of Salvation Made Plain

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The only light that shone in the darkness of the ancient world was that of the prophets of the Old Testament. The God of heaven had endowed Abraham and his descendants with the only message of salvation ("in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed," Gen. 12:3). But Israel and Judah failed miserably, and became worse than the pagans whom they were sent to evangelize (Ezekiel 16). The honor of God as Creator and Redeemer of the world was dragged into the mire; Israel blocked His plan of salvation. In a desperate last chance to appeal to the hearts of His people and because of His love for the dark world, God permitted them to be dragged into Babylonian captivity.

Then it was that finally one of the captives saw God's plan of salvation made plain. But even Daniel could not "see" it until he grasped the principle of corporate guilt and repentance. When, like Jesus later at His baptism by John the Baptist, Daniel took upon himself personally the guilt of Israel (9:3-20), the fog rolled away and he was able to receive "skill and understanding" (vs. 22). Only then could he "see" what the Savior of the world would accomplish: (1) "finish the transgression, and ... (2) make an end of sins, and ... (3) make reconciliation for iniquity, and (4) bring in everlasting righteousness" (vs. 24). No superficial Band-aids here!

Jesus would "condemn sin" "in the likeness of sinful flesh," get down to its roots and outlaw it forever (Rom. 8:3, 4). No more offerings of animals to only perpetuate egoism. No more old covenant blindness. Abraham's "Seed," that is, "One, ... which is Christ" (Gal. 3:16) would deliver the human race from the iron grip of egoism. God's new covenant promise would no longer be sabotaged by rebellious Israel. The crucified Lamb would become "the Lion of the tribe of Judah" (Rev. 5:5, 6). But all that "the Lamb" accomplished in Himself must be demonstrated finally before the world and the universe in those who "follow [Him] whithersoever He goeth" (14:4).

The success of God's grand plan of salvation must ultimately depend on its final hour, and it is there that the "cleansing of the sanctuary" truth comes into its own. Christ must be able to demonstrate to the universe that He has indeed "finished transgression," "made an end of sins," "made reconciliation for iniquity" (not been reconciled TO iniquity--Satan's counterfeit!), and "brought in everlasting righteousness." God grant us grace to cooperate with Him!

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 11, 2001.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

How Do You Know You've Received the Holy Spirit?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Since we are both "incognito," let me ask a pointed question: "Have you received the Holy Spirit?" The question is sensible, for Romans 8:9 bluntly says that if the answer is "No," you are still in the state in verse 7 of "enmity against God." Even if you are an "elder," a "pastor," or a high-placed church leader.
How can one know if he/she has received the Holy Spirit? In the words of Jesus, the evidence is not an emotional flight of feeling, shouting, rolling on the floor, or talking "unknown" gibberish, or the nice-sounding compliments of fellow church members or clergy.
Have you ever sat in a position for a time that your leg has "gone to sleep," the nerves become numb so you couldn't feel anything in it? When sensation returned, you felt a prickling almost like needles sticking you. Welcome news! You knew the leg was "alive."
According to Jesus, the first and clearest evidence that one has received the Holy Spirit is a painful conviction of spiritual need: "If I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convict ... of sin" (John 16:7, 8). Sometimes people experience the tragedy of discovering lethal cancer before they feel any pain; scientific tests that transcend "feeling" would have been wise. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the life makes you very aware of the difference between your character and that of Christ. Such awareness is impossible apart from receiving the Holy Spirit--for the natural everyday heart-attitude (which psychology and the world encourage) is to be self-satisfied with oneself, "I am [spiritually] rich and ... have need of nothing."
But the presence of the Holy Spirit brings a deep conviction of need: "You are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (Rev. 3:17). BAD News? No way! Painful truth is always GOOD News, for it means there is still hope for you. The final sin against the Holy Spirit is a spiritual lobotomy, a severing of the soul's vagus nerve, leaving you pathetically (eternally) unaware of your true condition in the sight of Heaven.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 30, 1999.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Have We Misunderstood the Gospel?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Galatians 5:16, 17 has spiritual nuclear energy within it. It says that if we have made the choice to walk with the Holy Spirit and let Him hold us by the hand (isn't that what baptism is?), He strives night and day 24/7 against our fallen, sinful "flesh," our sinful nature. Yes--personally, individually. The result? The text says we "cannot do the things that [we] would."

There are two ways we can read that: (1) We cannot do the GOOD things the Holy Spirit prompts us to do. (Is that good news?) If the mighty power of the Holy Spirit is striving against our "flesh" and we still can't do the good things we'd like to do, that looks like the worst BAD news we could imagine. That would mean that sin is stronger than God. In other words, He has lost the great controversy--in principle. That's an Old Covenant way to read Galatians 5:16, 17, popular but questionable.

(2) The other possibility is: if we choose to let the Holy Spirit hold us by the hand we cannot do the EVIL things that "the flesh" would prompt us to do. Paul goes on to detail "the works of the flesh" that the Holy Spirit saves us from doing: "adultery, fornication, ..." etc., etc. A good list of things to be delivered from! But too often we seem to get entangled in them. Why? Have we misunderstood the gospel?

Then the apostle details some of the good things that the Holy Spirit prompts us (and enables us) to do if we "walk" with Him: "Love [agape], joy, peace, …" etc., etc. (vss. 22-24). That's the best GOOD news we could imagine; it's New Covenant news.

The traditional way to understand Paul is that we can't do the good things we'd like to do, so Jesus just has to "cover" for our continued sinning, which is nice of Him to do but leaves Him ashamed before the universe for the failure of His gospel to save FROM sin (cf. Rom. 1:16). (Incidentally, we may have thought that Romans 7:15 is parallel to our text in Galatians, but it doesn't talk about a Spirit-consecrated life, but a pre-Romans [8:1-4] life).

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 17, 2006.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

In Defense of the Apostle Paul

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Can I say something in defense of the Apostle Paul? He is getting a bad rap with many Christians, even pastors. They virtually malign him, accusing him of writing things that are way over people's heads. The result? Many don't even try to read his Letters in the New Testament. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 1:13, "There is nothing in [my] letters to you but what you can read for yourselves, and understand" (New English Bible). The Good News Bible says: "We write to you only what you can read and understand." Sounds like Paul claims to be a good communicator! Why would God call him to be an apostle if he couldn't explain the gospel to people clearly? A poor communicator has no business being a preacher or an apostle!
But these anti-Paul critics claim, "Peter says he writes things 'hard to be understood!'" And sure enough in 2 Peter 3:16 the King James Version has Peter complaining about "our beloved brother Paul" that he writes things "hard-to-be-understood." So, "why bother to read Paul? He's over your head!" So say many. And even the Commentary writers chime in and say, yes, that's what Peter says!
Well, the actual one word that Peter uses in 2 Peter 3:16 that is translated "hard-to-be-understood" is DUSNOETOS, the prefix DUS, a negative, and NOETOS which means "perceived" or "understood." The word literally means MISPERCEIVED. Peter goes on to explain himself by adding that superficial readers "wrest" Paul's words, twisting them "unto their own destruction." Clearly, says Peter, the fault is not with Paul's communication skills, but with prejudiced, dishonest reading.
So, let me encourage you to read Paul. He adds in 2 Corinthians 1:14: "Even though you now understand [me] only in part, I hope that you will come to understand [me] completely, so that in the Day of the Lord Jesus you can be as proud of [me] as [I] shall be of you" (GNB; note the editorial "we"). Sounds like you must understand Paul if you will be happy when Jesus returns.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 9, 1998.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
>--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

The Two Sisters of Luke Ten

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There are two sisters in the Bible whom we can never forget. The older, Martha, figures as a lady full of bustle, fussy, on edge, nervous, always busy in the kitchen doing something, and irritable about it because her sister Mary doesn't share in getting all the chores done. Their story is in Luke 10:38-42. Martha also becomes the hostess at a big banquet (John 12:2). A very good lady, hard-working. But she missed something that would have made her life more happy.
Jesus appreciated being a guest in Martha's "house" in Bethany, a suburb of Jerusalem. It was a relief for Him from the pressure of sick people hounding Him and the constant hatred of the Jewish leaders. Martha was a "believer," but not a very "hungry" one.
Her younger sister Mary had also become a believer while living in exile in Magdala up in Galilee. By piecing together all the context of this story, it becomes evident that their uncle had had a lot to do with raising Mary (the father is never mentioned; apparently he was out of the picture, dead, or at least as good as dead--some fathers are like that!). Uncle Simon had begun molesting young Mary sexually (some uncles in history have done things like that). Mary was vulnerable. Knowledge of the affair would have ruined good Simon's career as a leader in the church in Jerusalem; it seems that Mary took a nosedive into despair up there in Magdala. She was an intelligent young woman, which made her despair all the more bitter. Many women can identify; she hated the man who had ruined her life, and apparently all men, too. Gave up hope that there is any such thing in the world as clean, pure love. Became a basket case, possessed of "seven devils," we read. Then she met Jesus. She had never encountered love such as was in Him. He could deliver her.
Thereafter she couldn't get enough of this agape. So when Jesus was a Guest in Martha's "house," Mary wanted to learn from Him all she could about the plan of salvation. Martha fussed at her for not helping more in the kitchen. Jesus would have gladly skipped the dessert! Two good women, but Mary had "chosen the better part," said Jesus. Now, don't let yourself "starve" while slaving in the kitchens of life!
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 1, 2004.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

"He Died Instead of Us"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Ask any group of Christians, "Why did Jesus die on His cross?" and they will tell you, "He died as our Substitute." And that's 100% true. But what does it mean? How does that truth make any difference in the way we live?
We say, "He died instead of us," and that's true; He did. If you had been drafted in the American Civil War of 1861-65, you could hire a substitute to take your place and die instead of you; now you can enjoy life while he suffers and his loved ones mourn. "My substitute has taken my place!" It's a vicarious substitution. And you can think of the sacrifice of Christ in that same way. He died instead of you.
But is it a childish way of thinking of His cross? Is it basically egocentric?
The Bible goes far deeper: Christ's sacrifice is also a shared substitution. "I am crucified with Christ," says Galatians 2:20. "We were baptized into Jesus Christ, ... baptized into His death, ... buried with Him by baptism into death, ... planted together with Him in the likeness of His death, ... our old man [the love of self] crucified with Him, ... dead with Christ." If all this is true, then "we shall also live with Him" (Rom. 6:3-8). But only IF…
One is the kindergarten, flower-girl-at-the-wedding idea of substitution--very, very true; but the other is the bride growing up "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), prepared to stand with Him side by side in the "marriage of the Lamb." It's a time for divine-human intimacy never before realized by the body of His church.
Apparently the Bridegroom believes the time has come for His people to "grow up." The long delay must weary Him. Does it weary you?
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 1, 2005.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Calvinism and "Limited Atonement"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Did Jesus die for everybody? Or only for "the elect," that is, a special group that God has chosen shall be saved? Has He consigned all others to be lost?
One of the celebrated "five points of Calvinism" is called "Limited Atonement," the idea being that Christ offered His blood as an atonement only for a limited group of people--the lucky "elect."
If the idea is true, it leaves me wondering if I am one of the lucky few! And that can trigger all kinds of depression, endless worry. Or if I can be sure that I am one of the lucky few, then it leads toward monstrous arrogance. Why can I assume that the Lord has chosen me to eternal salvation and consigned my neighbor next door to eternal damnation? He may be as good a person as I am!
Careful scholarship brings forth massive evidence now from Calvin's writings that he did NOT believe in "limited atonement." He believed that Christ died for all men. That's Good News indeed.
But the same careful scholarship finds that Calvin believed that only the sacrifice at the cross was for all men, but His intercession at the throne of His Father is "limited" to "the elect." In other words, Calvin believed that all that Christ accomplished at His cross does no one any good unless Christ intercedes for him--and that is what is "limited" only to those special "elect." Salvation is still due to a special, pre-ordained, arbitrary divine "election."
Calvin was a wonderful man and did enormous good. But he lived too early in the history of the world to realize how Paul says that Christ GAVE the "free gift" of "much more abounding grace" and "justification" to "all men" (Rom. 5:15-18, 20). His "much more abounding grace" is as unlimited as His atonement! As surely as God gave "the birthright" to Esau, so surely He gave the GIFT of salvation to "all men," in Himself. He gave Himself for the world and to the world. But along with that "gift," He gave the power of choice; and therefore no one will at last be lost who has not chosen to resist, reject, "despise," and has "sold" the precious "birthright" that was GIVEN to him (Gen. 25:33, 34; Heb. 12:16, 17; Rev. 22:17). "Whosoever will may come." Those who "will not" won't want to enter the New Jerusalem.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: September 14, 2004.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

A People Ready for the Second Coming--Who Will They Be?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The letters we have in the Bible that Paul wrote to different churches all follow one simple pattern: at first he tells the Good News of what Christ has accomplished for His church and also for the world. This is the "objective" gospel. As Paul sees it, this "objective" gospel is "the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth" (Rom. 1:16). The power is in the message itself. It "constrains" the believer "henceforth" to live not unto himself but unto Christ (2 Cor. 5:14, 15). Great!
When Paul gets around to writing to "the Hebrews," he ties in this same "objective" gospel to what our great High Priest accomplishes. In other words, he lets in the clutch and the racing motor gets joined to the wheels--now the "objective gospel" delivers the torque that makes it become the "subjective gospel"--obedience and loving, selfless ministry.
Hebrews sees something begin to happen that will end up with a people on earth who are ready for the second coming of Christ! The connection finally becomes complete.
Who will they be? Ordinary people, like sinners, who have lived on earth for 6000 years. Made a mess of their lives, fallen again and again, suffered all kinds of failure, abuse, even degradation. The weakest segment of humanity, known as "the remnant," "every nation, kindred, tongue, and people" who all have a diploma in unworthiness.
They will not "overcome" because they have improved DNA. But they will understand more clearly what is that "objective gospel." The difference? They have "grown up" in FAITH "unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ," to "comprehend" dimensions in the cross that others have not seen so clearly (Eph. 4:13, 14; 3:14-21). All of which are included in Hebrews about the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary--a work done both in heaven and in human hearts.
It's going on NOW! Click on "believe."
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 19, 2001.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

What Will Grip Teenage Hearts Forever?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A group of teenage students in a Christian school nearby were having a Week of Prayer. Their hearts moved, they lit a bonfire for their rock music CDs. They realized that some if not many of the popular rock lyrics are frankly the worship and glorification of Satan. The "great controversy between Christ and Satan" is raging right inside teen hearts. The struggle can be intense. The whole world is encapsulated in one human soul.

It's the modern counterpart of the revivals and reformations in ancient Israel when an occasional king like Hezekiah or Josiah would be moved to throw out the sex-worship gods and goddesses from the holy Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Indignant against this seductive and alluring pagan worship, they did like the great Phinehas at Shittim in Numbers 25. "Israel ... began to commit whoredom with the daughters of Moab" and "joined himself unto Baal-peor." When Zimri, a most prominent "prince" in Israel, openly paraded "a Midianitish woman" into his tent right before Moses and "all the congregation," young Phineas followed him into the tent and "thrust both of them through. ... So the plague was stayed" (vss. 1, 3, 8). But often those "revivals" were short lived because they were basically Old Covenant in nature--all the way back to Mount Sinai.

Our widespread obsession with Satan-worship through music has gripped legions of Christian youth. Hypocrisy with boring lukewarmness in grownups has fueled and encouraged the deep-rooted apostasy. A harsh fear-motivated return to legalism cannot be a permanent solution. All egocentric devotion disguised as the worship of Christ soon becomes Baal worship again, as in ancient Israel, over and over. On and on we go, decade after decade, repeating ancient history, until we can come to grasp the New Covenant principles of the gospel. They alone grip teenage hearts forever. Do not despair. The pure non-Babylonian, most precious gospel is still the power of God unto salvation. It works!

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 8, 2002.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
To un-subscribe click on this link: Unsubscribe me from this list
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

Does Satan Use Music to Allure Youth?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Is it true that Satan and evil angels use music to allure youth (and older ones) to eternal ruin? Can music be a mind control that captures its victim in slavery, like drug or alcohol addiction? Can the Enemy in the "great controversy between Christ and Satan" enter even into Christian churches and ensnare "Christian" youth through rock music coming from paganism?

Sadly, the answer has to be an unqualified yes. Satan is not music itself, but his rebellion against God finds expression in music. Music can become one of the methods Satan uses to ensnare, a way which the Bible speaks of twice in Ephesians in the Greek word methodeia, the word translated as "cunning craftiness ... to deceive," and as "wiles of the devil" (4:14; 6:11). Such music is a cruel form of enslavement, because its allurement is through what was a precious gift of God, a language of heaven that transcends logic and reason--music. It's a gift of God that gives sheer pleasure.

How does one distinguish between music inspired by the Holy Spirit and that which is inspired by God's enemy, Satan?

The answer is really very simple, but easily misunderstood because the latter involves that "cunning craftiness" or "wiles" of Satan. And it's not correct to assume that "classical" music is automatically heavenly, for evil-minded composers can be "classical." The fundamental problem is Job's in the Bible--distinguishing between God and Satan, who is who. A Christian church should be a place where the distinction is made very clear! Step number one has to be a clear presentation of the Genuine--the agape kind of love that is revealed in the sacrifice of Christ on His cross. Then the devil's counterfeits show up for what they are.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 31, 2002.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

The Secret of Paul's Constant Joy in the Lord

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Does it make any difference in your personal life today what you believe about the sacrifice of Christ on His cross? If we "examine ourselves whether we be in the faith" as Paul says we should (2 Cor. 13:5), we will find it is very important what we believe.
What we believe about Jesus and what He accomplished, will seriously impact our character and our daily level of happiness. So important was the cross of Jesus to Paul's personal living that he said, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." After near-failure in his ministry in Athens, he told the Corinthians, "When I came to you, ... I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified." He told the Galatians that he had so closely empathized with Jesus on His cross that "I am crucified with Christ" (Gal. 6:14; 1 Cor. 2:1-3; Gal. 2:20).
The secret of Paul's constant joy in the Lord even in the midst of intense suffering was his identification with Christ in His sacrifice. He learned to appreciate the "breadth, and length, and depth, and height" of the love revealed at that cross (Eph. 3:18). He chose to believe that Christ "loved me, and gave Himself for me." He contemplated where he would be if Christ had not "given Himself," and concluded correctly that he would be "dead" (Gal. 2:20 again, and 2 Cor. 5:14). And death would be not merely blissful sleep but the horrors of judgment and hell itself (vss. 10, 11).
The result was like day following night. Paul saw himself as literally and truly redeemed from hell. He "look[ed] unto the rock whence [he was] hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence [he was] digged" (Isa. 51:1), and concluded reasonably and logically that he "thus judged" that his entire life was not his, but Christ's. It became a daily joy for Paul to "die daily" to self because he sensed vividly how Christ had died to self for him. It was a simple 2 + 2 = 4 for Paul: Christ died for me; I must live for Him! (see 1 Cor. 15:31; 2 Cor. 5:14, 15).
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 12, 2002.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

 Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

Will Jesus Just "Cover" Your Sinning With His White Robe?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

"Our beloved brother [the apostle] Paul" (2 Peter 3:15) writes something that seems strange--if you take it as it reads. It's Galatians 5:16, 17 (KJV): "The flesh lusteth [strives] against the [Holy] Spirit, and the [Holy] Spirit against the flesh: and these [two] are contrary the one to the other [we've always known that, haven't we?]: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would." There are two ways to read that--"the things that ye would" are either good things or bad things; can't be both. What Paul says doesn't seem strange if we take it the popular way--the things you "cannot do" are the good things you'd like to do but can't.
In other words, the popular idea is that it's easy to sin while it's uphill going to resist sin, to do good as we'd like to do. The allure of self and of the "flesh" and of the world is stronger than our desire to go to prayer meeting, for example. The idea long encouraged is that no matter how strongly you want to "overcome," you should settle down to reality: as long as you have your bad equipment of a sinful nature inherited all the way from Adam, you'll have to continue sinning until Jesus comes in the clouds of heaven and zaps you with new equipment--a sinless nature. Then it will be possible and even easy to do what's right. For now, God doesn't expect you not to sin. Jesus will "cover" your sinning with His white robe; the Father won't even see your continued sinning, He'll only see Jesus covering your sinning.
But that's not what Paul actually says! In verse 16 we read, "Walk with the [Holy] Spirit and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh," in other words, you won't fall into sin! "The things that ye would" that "ye cannot do," according to what Paul says here, are the sinful things your fallen nature prompts you to do. And yes, this does sound strange! It sounds contrary to all we've learned since childhood at our mother's knee. We've always understood it's hard to be good and it's easy to be bad.
The Ten Commandments read with Old Covenant eyes are stern, dark prohibitions; read with New Covenant eyes they are sunlit promises of victory in overcoming. Which are they?
What is the bottom line truth that the Bible teaches? Time's up; but tomorrow we'll delve a bit deeper.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 16, 2006.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

The Prayer of a "Down and Outer"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Does God hear the prayer of someone who is truly "down and out"? Who sees his entire life to be a failure? Who is crushed, humiliated, trampled on, disgraced, useless?
No prayer in the Bible is from anyone lower "down" or more disgracefully "out" than Jonah's from inside the great fish's stomach! No drug addict, alcoholic, or criminal is any lower down, more shamed and disgraced:
"Out of the belly of [Hell] I cried, and You heard my voice. For You cast me into the deep [actually it was the distraught sailors who "cast" him in], into the heart of the seas [to sink naked into a dark, raging "ocean" is anybody's "hell"]. … All Your billows and Your waves passed over me. Then I said, 'I have been cast out of Your sight.' ... The waters surrounded me, even to my soul, ... I went down to the moorings [foundations] of the mountains [can you think of a lower-down place?]" (Jonah 2:1-6).
Jeremiah often told the people of Judah that the Lord would punish them severely; yet in actuality He Himself never touched a hair of their heads--the Babylonians did it all. But God takes the blame for the evil that happens to us. We too feel that it's the Lord who punishes us as we deserve.
David taught Jonah to pray: "Out of the depths I have cried to You, O Lord … There is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared" (Psalm 130:1, 4). He too was a down and outer after his double crime (Psalm 51).
Jonah said: "When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord" (vs. 7). And the dear Lord remembered him! He hears you, too, even if you are on a cancer deathbed. Join Jonah in his little down-low place. God hears you there.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 24, 2006.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

A Psalm for This Time of Confusion

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Paul, God's faithful servant, suffered a humiliating rebuke in his evangelism crusade in the great city of Athens. He made the mistake of trying to match philosophy with philosophy, trying to meet the Athenian scholars on their own ground. The result: near failure in soul-winning, although a few did respond.
When he came to the immoral city of Corinth, he says he "determined not to know anything among [them] except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). The book of Revelation is also a presentation of the cross of Christ. In code language, "the Lamb as though it had been slain" (5:6) is the same message as Paul's theme in Corinth. Some 28 times we find that word "Lamb" in Revelation--the book is the most cross-centered book in the Bible! It's the same as Paul's message of "Christ and Him crucified." Without discerning this truth, the fanatics or enthusiasts find Revelation to be their playground.
As we near the end of time, their confusion will become more and more painful to endure. Each will proclaim that he knows the secret of "finishing God's work," "listen to me!" But he "multiplies words. ... The labor of fools wearies [everyone], for they do not even know how to go to the city!" (Eccl. 10:12-15). Are you bewildered by the multiplicity of voices crying "Lo here! Or, lo there!" (Luke 17:21)?
Psalm 46 was written for this time of cataclysmic confusion when "the waters [are] troubled" and "mountains [are carried] into the midst of the sea." The counsel is, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations. I will be exalted in the earth." The language is that of Revelation 18:1-4. Be wise and patient; spend time on your knees alone with God so that you are ready to discern that true last-days' message of the cross.
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 20, 2006.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

What Kind of Adolescent Was Jesus?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It's easy for us all to forget that Jesus Christ was once an adolescent. But just saying so raises huge questions immediately: What kind of adolescent? Was He really human? Did He have hormones? Was He really male? Was He an adolescent wimp? Did He let the kids walk all over Him? Did He even associate with other kids or was He the Supreme Home-Schooler? Did He dare venture outdoors? Was He the village Fun-Killer?

The problem all of us have difficulty with is understanding how the Son of God could be fully human as well as divine. All through the history of the past two millennia the idea has prevailed that Jesus was "exempt" from inheriting our normal human DNA; He must be separated from involvement in our fallible, sinful humanity. Temptation for Him must be non-temptation; He must not be a truly human Teenager who understands fully how the other kids feel. He must be as unrelated to them as the eagle soaring in the alpine currents is "above" the feelings of the chickens who can't get off the ground. To adolescents in today's world, Jesus is the sickly looking, pious monkish Figure in the stained glass windows of the cathedral. He's the adolescent so "different" that you just can't relate to Him, and you would never bother to speak to Him at school; you'd look the other way.

And if He were to speak to you, it would be in obsolete, monotone Elizabethan English with hollow phrases like "thee's" and "thou's."

In contrast, the Bible presents Jesus the Adolescent as 100 percent human as well as totally divine, "in all points tempted LIKE AS [not unlike] we are tempted"--we adolescents! Complete with the problem of what to do with self, for He tells us that He has a self as we have a "self." He has a will of His own just as every adolescent has a will of his/her own. He is as fully tempted to be selfish as is any Queen Bee in the adolescent hierarchy. (Take a look at John 5:30; 6:38; Matt. 26:39; Luke 9:23; Rom. 15:3.) But He chooses NOT to give in to self. Look and wonder the rest of your life: He chooses to deny self! Most of the kids would consider Him a Fool, for the path He chooses will lead Him straight to a cross. And there He will die so we can be free to go on being selfish and mean if we want to be. Or, repent.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 16, 2002.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

When We Learn to "Ask to Give"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

In His delightful little story in Luke 11 Jesus tells how the man who begged his neighbor for some bread for his unexpected guests kept on begging at midnight until the wearied neighbor finally got up and gave him all he needed (vss. 5-8). Then comes the heart-warming assurance from Jesus: if we continually "beg" the heavenly Father for some "bread," He will never give us a "stone."

Continual praying for the gift of the Holy Spirit means continual hunger and thirst for "bread" and the "water of life." It means continually feeling in need, feeling wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked (Rev. 3:17); continually sensing that our "pantry" is empty. There is no point in continually "asking" unless we have that continual hunger and thirst, otherwise our prayers are like the Tibetan prayer-wheels where the prayers flap in the breeze 24 hours a day. God has trouble "feeding" anyone who isn't hungry.

Perhaps before we beg for the "bread" we should ask Him to give us an appetite that feels our emptiness--the sentient awareness that the TV soap opera or sports game only masks the unconscious malnutrition of our souls. Often we pray for answers that it seems the Lord wisely delays to give us; but for certain, a prayer, "Lord, show me my need! Reveal to me my selfishness, my hypocrisy, my buried sin,"--that prayer will be answered quickly because it is the kind of prayer John says must be answered for it is "according to God's will" (1 John 5:14).
 
Lastly, Jesus' little story tells a secret: when you ask for "bread" in order to give it to someone else (not yourself!) that is what brings a guaranteed answer in the positive. What a thrill of joy is yours and mine when we learn to "ask to give."

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 19, 2000.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

Arminianism vs. Calvinism--Utter Confusion?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

You love John and Charles Wesley's hymns? Yes! You also love Toplady's "Rock of Ages"? Yes! But did you know that John Wesley and Toplady were locked in mortal theological conflict in their day? They virtually disfellowshipped each other, although in reading their letters, I get the impression that John Wesley's spirit was closer to being sanctified than Toplady's. The issue they were debating was Arminianism versus Calvinism. Over your head? Well, it shouldn't be, because the issue has not yet been truly resolved, after these hundreds of years. If the water is over your head, it may be because you don't have your feet well planted on the Rock of ages, and that's why you are floundering and drowning.
The issue in a nutshell is this: one side said that God merely offers the gospel to people, the other side said that God gives the gospel to people. As far apart as night and day. And yet after the smoke and din of battle subsided, it was said that one side preached like the other side, and the other side prayed like the other side. Yes, you can't evade the truth: John Wesley was in many respects a Calvinist, and Arminius was more of a Calvinist than many Arminians, and Calvin himself was close to being an Arminian!
Utter confusion? Impenetrable fog? Far from it. In the 17th and 18th centuries these dear people, through no fault of their own, did not have the message that alone resolves the debate: "the third angel's message in verity" that "the Lord in His great mercy sent" to us over a century ago. It pierced through the fog into the bright sunlight of what Paul was pleased to speak of as "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:5, 14). We'd better humble our hearts before the Lord and understand it ourselves, or we'll never have a message that can "lighten the earth with glory" (see Rev. 18:1-4). Are we content to join our forebears of the past six millennia and await a future generation who will be willing to experience complete reconciliation with God?
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 4, 1998.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

The Simple Truth in Galatians

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Galatians tells simple truth that is so tremendous that churches and Christians in general find it hard to believe. And not a few reject the Good News that the Holy Spirit impressed the apostle Paul to write.
An example is chapter 5:16-18, which actually says that if you let the Holy Spirit guide you ("go for a walk with Him, let Him hold you by the hand") you cannot do the evil things your sinful human nature prompts you to do ("you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh"). Then Paul gives the reason for this astounding statement: although your sinful nature fights against that leading of the Holy Spirit ("the flesh strives against the Spirit"), yet at the same time the Holy Spirit fights against your sinful nature ("the Spirit strives against the flesh"). Thus there is constant turmoil in the heart of the believer of the gospel of Jesus ("these are contrary the one to the other"). Because the mighty power of the Third Person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, is greater and stronger than your sinful nature, you get to the point where it is impossible for you to give in to the clamors of your fallen, sinful nature ("ye cannot do the things that ye would").
Thus Paul explains his statement in Romans 1:16 that the gospel is powerful (like dynamite, dunamis). Now, most people who think they believe that gospel sincerely believe that Galatians teaches that you cannot do the good things the Holy Spirit prompts you to do, when in reality Galatians is teaching that you cannot do the evil things your flesh prompts you to do! Titus 2:11 (NIV) says it's the "grace of God … [that] teaches us to say 'No!'" to those clamors of our fallen, sinful flesh. In other words, for the one who believes Galatians, the Ten Commandments have become ten promises. "This makes the Good News too good," someone objects; so here we are, right back where the Galatians themselves were nearly 2000 years ago. When, oh when, will "whosoever believe"?
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 17, 2000.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

Thoughts on Independence Day

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

In our 234 years since declaring our "independence," the United States has attained the power and prestige of a world empire. A former President openly said that we are the Roman Empire redivivus. While we bask in our political and military glory, we need to reflect on what led to the "decline and fall of the Roman Empire."
Our beginnings lay in the oppressed people of God searching for a land where they could worship God in purity and in freedom of conscience. Massachusetts offered free welcome at the public cost to Christians of any nationality who wanted to escape from wars or famine or the oppression of persecutors. The historian George Bancroft recorded that "one might be for years a dweller in the Puritan settlement, and not see a drunkard, or hear an oath, or meet a beggar." There was a serious purpose to live the principles of Bible righteousness. The feeble and isolated colonies grew to a confederation of powerful states; now the nation has become the marvel of world history. It has become the land of opportunity; the ambition of millions is to "come to America" and start life anew.
Those principles of uprightness, of Christian liberty of conscience as well as of civil liberty led to immense economic prosperity. "O beautiful for pilgrim feet / Whose stern impassioned stress / A thoroughfare of freedom beat / Across the wilderness! / America! America! God mend thine every flaw, / Confirm thy soul in self-control, / Thy liberty in law!"
Now everybody knows that America has bitter enemies. But if we faithfully adhere to the universally honored principles of our own Constitution, we can attract and hold the grudging respect of those enemies. The recognition of human sinfulness is universal in humanity; the poet's prayer is right--"God mend thine every flaw." As a nation, we should seek for and welcome that "mending." National arrogance has been wrong for America throughout these two centuries. A decent moral modesty will be a more effective defense against the horrors of terrorism than any military might.
"America! America! God shed His grace on thee / And crown thy good with brotherhood / From sea to shining sea!"
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 4, 2004.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

Can God Love and "Abhor" Someone at the Same Time?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Does God love everybody? If you believe what John 3:16 says, you have to answer YES.
But does God admire and respect everybody for what he or she is? Is it possible for God to love someone and at the same time "abhor" him/her? Yes! If God "abhors" someone it doesn't mean He doesn't love that person, but only that God is disgusted with the pride, arrogance, selfishness, willful rebellion, of that person. Yes, God loves and pities a fool, but according to very clear teaching in the Bible He must have a very hard time respecting a fool. And there is nothing in the Bible that even faintly suggests that even though He is "longsuffering," that God's patience with fools is everlasting.

For example: "The great God that formed all things ... rewardeth the fool" (Prov. 26:10). How? "Judgments are prepared for scorners, and stripes for the back of fools" (19:29, the "stripes" are an evidence of God's love for the fool).

The Bible does not picture God as delighting in hurling lightning bolts at fools: those who "hate knowledge" and "despise" all of God's reproof shall simply "eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the turning away of the simple shall slay them, and the prosperity of fools ["it's the economy!" say those who don't care about decency or uprightness in national leadership] shall destroy them" (1:29-32).

And there is this insightful gem of divine wisdom: "The mouth of an immoral woman is a deep pit; he who is abhorred of the Lord will fall therein" (Prov. 22:14). In the eyes of heaven such a person does not have any respect. But let's not forget: God still loves a fool. David was one--he walked right into the "pit" with his eyes wide open. But oh, how he repented! In dust and ashes forever after! It's a great prayer to pray, "God be merciful to me a sinner!" but maybe it's an even greater one to pray, "God be merciful to me a fool!" The Good News? God hears that prayer.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 8, 1999.

Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org

--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".

The "Trigger" for the Final Events?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The media keep talking about another fear that gnaws at our vitals: a fear greater than of REcession--now of a DEpression.

Some of us still living have actual memories of living in a house without electricity, even without running water, without inside plumbing (yes, an "outhouse" in the back yard), and without supermarkets. Millions of our younger generations cannot fathom such a life.

If you've never known life in a grand Promised Land flowing with milk and honey, if you've always known nothing but grinding poverty, you're not as afraid of a Depression as those who have known nothing else but wealth and luxury. You dread losing even a little of what you've always taken for granted. Such materialistic fear could someday easily trigger religious injustice.

Want some comfort and happiness? Identify with Jesus of Nazareth, the world's Savior. Live with Him, close to Him. He had nowhere to lay His head, not even a tent or grass roof. He died with no wealth other than His clothing. Offer (and feel) profound thanks for whatever luxury or comfort you do have now, and confess from the depths of your soul that all you enjoy is the purchase of His sacrifice for the world. "The bread of God is He which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. ... Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye have no life in you" (John 6:33, 53). It's true! All your life you've been eating at His table. Whether or not we believe, we owe everything to Him.

Has the Father in heaven decided that at last the world should be brought to realize the true Source of that "life" which we all have blithely enjoyed? If so, could that trigger the final events of Revelation 18?

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 7, 2001.Copyright © 2010 by Robert J. Wieland.
Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
To subscribe send an e-mail message with "subscribe" in the body of the message to: dailybread@1888message.org
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

 Facebook Users, please click below on "View original post".