Daily Bread: July 2011

Saturday, July 30, 2011

"The Power of God Unto Salvation"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Everybody on earth is called to learn about the work of the Holy Spirit, especially in these last days. He is doing a mighty work; the vast universe of intelligent beings is concerned about what He is doing here on planet earth; how much more, we!

(a) The "early rain" of the Holy Spirit enables people to overcome all known sin (John 16:8).

(b) But the "latter rain" prepares believers to overcome all sin, even that now unknown to them. Don't say that's impossible: David prays our daily prayer, "Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts, and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting" (Psalm 139:23, 24).

(c) Many great saints died before our Day of Atonement in which we now live, not knowing they were in transgression of God's holy law; for example, Wesley who never kept the Bible Sabbath and Luther, died drinking his beer. Their level of faith was sufficient for their time; but now we face the final Time of Trouble and the call to be ready to be translated (1 Thess. 4:15-17). Frightening? No! Not if we understand the "everlasting gospel" (Rev. 14:6, 7)

(d) The greatest sins ever committed were unknown sin.

(e) "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," prayed Jesus at His cross.

(f) The "latter rain" prepares a people to sit with Christ on His throne, and exercise executive authority with Him in bringing to a close the great controversy with Satan (Rev. 3:21). The "early rain" merely extenuates it. Christ wants and deserves closure.

(g) The Lord cannot translate sin buried deep in a human heart, unknown. His presence is death to sin.

(h) The "latter rain" is not emotional excitement, but solid truth not previously perceived. That truth will enable believers to overcome, even as [Christ] overcame.

(i) If ever the gospel has been the power of God unto salvation to every one who believes (Rom. 1:16), it is now when it's to be understood in the light of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 22, 2007.

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Friday, July 29, 2011

Everyone's Life Story

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Ephesians 2:2, 3 is everyone's life story: we "once walked according to the course of this world, ... in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others." Thus we can all see how we are potentially guilty of the sins of others; if we had never been saved by the Lord, think of what frightful evil we could have descended to!

So, "Out of the depths [we] have cried to You, O LORD" (Psalm 130:1). As we review our pasts, anguish covers us. How could we have been so foolish in our childhood and teenage years? If we had had no Savior, the sins of others would have become ours; we are by nature no better than anyone else.

"If You, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?" No one.

Then there comes this glorious assurance: "But there is forgiveness with You, that You may be feared [reverenced]" (vss. 3, 4). The music changes from a sad minor key to a glad major key.

The Lord has saved us from ruin. "Henceforth" we live in thanksgiving.

"Forgiveness" is more than pardon; it's the taking away of the guilt and the taking away of the sin from the heart. We hate it now and never want to do it again. No one can do that for us except the Savior of the world, our personal great High Priest.

Ephesians continues: "God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)." From being depressed "in the depths" we are elevated to "sit together in the heavenly places with Christ Jesus" (Eph. 2:4-6).

Two solemn truths stand out: (1) We are "just as the others" (takes us down several notches). We are neither sleeping under freeway passes nor confined in prisons for crimes, due to "God's rich mercy." Let's not be proud. (2) Before we were even born, "by grace [we] have been saved through faith, ... it is the gift of God" (vs. 8).

Time now to sing His praises forever! And live to His glory, not our own.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 26, 2007.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Joined to Christ by Faith

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Each individual believer in Christ is "meek and lowly in heart" as Jesus was (Matt. 11:28-30). But he will be joined to Christ by faith, which means he will say with Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20, NKJV, KJV).

"The faith of the Son of God" is the faith by which He Himself defeated Satan in His human flesh. That flesh which Jesus "took" is the same that we all have inherited--fallen, sinful; but Jesus "condemned sin in the flesh," the "flesh" in which the Father sent Him (Rom. 8:3). In Christ, self was crucified long before He was nailed to His cross at the end.

Even as a Boy of 12 He demonstrated that He had said "No!" to self, and "Yes!" to His Father (cf. Luke 2:49). Constantly He said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me"; "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me"; in Gethsemane He cried, "O My Father, … not as I will, but as You will" (this, at the price of sweating blood, John 5:30, 6:38, Matt. 26:39).

One who believes in Jesus truly, will open his heart to receive "the faith of Jesus" and will also "condemn sin" in his own fallen, sinful flesh. It can be done by "the faith OF Jesus," and it will be done in those "144,000" who prepare for the second coming of Jesus (cf. Rev. 14:1-6).

The price? A Gethsemane-like struggle suited exactly to "the measure of faith" which God has "dealt to each one" of us (Rom. 12:3). Satan's attacks will be terrible; but like the 30-hour bombardment of Baltimore's Ft. McHenry in the War of 1812, when the smoke cleared away and "our flag was still there," the seal of God like a flag will still be flying over each one's personal "fort" that has endured Satan's merciless bombardment.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 14, 2005.

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

How Could Christ Identify With Us?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

So fully has the Son of God identified Himself with our fallen humanity, that it’s difficult to take a scalpel and separate the heart cries of Jesus in the Psalms from the heart cries of king David. For example, in Psalm 22:1 David cries out, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken me?” But then we discover that Jesus cries the same dereliction as He hangs on His cross (Matt. 27:46). Then as we read further in Psalm 22, lo and behold, we find that the entire psalm records the heart cries of Jesus up to the moment of His death when He cried out, “It is finished” (asah, the last word in the Hebrew, which means ”it’s done!”).

But how could Jesus Christ, the sinless One, pray the same words that the guilty, bloodstained sinner David prayed? Wasn’t Jesus “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners” (Heb. 7:26)? He should be as far away from feeling like the despicable sinner, David, as day is from night!

But wait a moment: isn’t His “name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matt. 1:23)? Isn’t it “unto us” that this “Child is born, unto us a Son is given” (Isa. 9:6)? Didn’t the Father “so love the world that He gave” Him to us forever? Don’t we “see Jesus ... made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death” (Heb. 2:9)? How could He “suffer death” unless He came inside our skin, as it were? He is “not ashamed to call [us] brethren” (vs. 11)! He had to be “[MADE] perfect through sufferings” (vs. 10). But wasn’t He “perfect” all along? In holiness, yes; but He had to go through a process of education for 33 years in order to qualify to cry out sincerely from a broken human heart every word of Psalm 22!

That word “made” is pregnant with enormous meaning: “In all things He had to be MADE like His brethren. ... In that He Himself has suffered being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted” (vss. 17, 18). He was “MADE of a woman, MADE under the law” (Gal. 4:4, KJV). He was “MADE in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:7, KJV), He became truly a man “in the [same] likeness of sinful flesh” (Rom. 8:3), “MADE ... to be sin for us,” who “knew no sin” (2 Cor. 5:21).

What does it all add up to?

Jesus Christ is the Son of God who became “the Son of man,” your Savior “in the flesh.” He knows 100 percent empathy with you. Here’s a double negative that makes a powerful positive: “We do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Heb. 4:15). Don’t turn your back on Him even for a day!

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: October 24, 2004.

Sunday, July 24, 2011

A Painful Human Experience

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There are famous examples of sibling hatred in the Bible:

(1) Cain's hatred of his brother Abel, which forever defines this deep-rooted feeling as cold-blooded murder if it runs its course (Gen. 4:8; it is the same principle as "road rage," but this was "garden rage"). Near the end of the Bible we find the same message as we found near its beginning: "Whosoever hateth his brother [her sister?] is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). Makes one tremble!

(2) Ishmael, "born after the flesh," wanted to persecute his brother Isaac, "the child of promise," "born after the Spirit" (Gal. 4:28-31).

(3) Esau wanted to kill his "younger" (by a few minutes) brother Jacob (Genesis 25), and face it, Jacob gave him what we would say was reason for his hatred.

(4) Jacob's ten sons hated Joseph and wanted to kill him or at least ruin his life by selling him into slavery (Genesis 37).

(5) David's older brother Eliab tried to make life miserable for him (1 Sam. 17:28). He despised his pure, honest, open hearted, youthful faith.

(6) Jeremiah's brothers despised his God-given ministry, "the house of [his] father," and added to the pain he was forced to endure (Jer. 12:6). If you want to follow Jesus, often the bitterest opposition you have to meet comes from your own family. May God give you grace to endure it with a Christlike spirit, as did Jeremiah!

(7) Finally, the Son of God Himself came, "Immanuel, … God with us," "born of a woman." He had siblings--at least six (four older step-brothers whose names are given, plus step-"sisters"; Matthew 13:55, 56). And they ridiculed Him (John 7:3-5). But here a bright light shines: Jesus won at least some of those unbelieving siblings (Acts 1:14). The victory didn't come until after His death, but it was worthwhile, wasn't it?

Well, let's thank Him for sharing what is one of the most painful experiences we humans endure!

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 12, 2001.

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Friday, July 22, 2011

A Personal Contact With Jesus

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We have an intensely personal contact with Jesus in the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4.

(1) He "knew" something--jealousy developing; the Pharisees knew that His disciples were baptizing more people than John the Baptist. He gets out of town for Galilee.

(2) "He needed to go through Samaria." Why? Maybe the shortest route; probably He wanted to win some Samaritans.

(3) It was hot weather, twelve noon, He was walking, "wearied from His journey." You'd be tired, too, and hungry. Jesus, the Son of God, Commander of the heavenly host, has humbled Himself to be one of us! He sits down by the town well, thirsty, hot, tired.

(4) A five-time-loser lady comes to draw some water, flippant in her disdain for a strange man with whom she doesn't want to make eye contact (the man is a Jew). Get the water and get away.

(5) The Savior of the world notices her, cares for her soul. But how to make contact?

(6) Heavenly psychology: ask for a favor--even the heathen can't refuse a drink of water. (But He is doomed to stay thirsty, for in the end she forgets to give it to Him.)

(7) He is "meek and lowly in heart," but promises her the sky--"living water," something the legendary "Messiah" alone will be able to give. But He lets her know He is Somebody. He has caught her with his "hook," she bites.

(8) Then He appears untactful, ungracious, even persnickety--opens a "can of worms" about her marital status. Why not first win her to Christianity and leave her to work out her morals? Why pain her at the beginning? Answer: the Holy Spirit's first job is to "convict of sin," and cohabiting without marriage is. Thus He proves that He is the divine Son of God.

(9) The disciples have left Him while they buy safari groceries in town; coming back, they haven't a clue what's going on. The Samaritans are in process of making an amazing theological discovery.

(10) The Samaritans discover who the disciples' "Master" is, whom they hadn't realized--He is "the Savior of the world." It took Paul years later to explain what that means in his Galatians and Romans.

We are still trying to realize who He is--is He the Savior of the world, or has He merely made an offer to be?

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 11, 2006.

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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.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Who Is Jesus Christ?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Who is Jesus Christ?

He was among us here on this planet some 2000 years ago. "He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not" (John 1:10). Does the world know Him better today? We hope so; there are people worldwide who preach Him.

Jesus Himself asked the plaintive question, "When the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith on the earth?" (Luke 18:8). The prophecies of Daniel and the Revelation tell of a massive deception of a false christ seeking to capture the earth; we can't imagine a more terrible thing to happen than for the true Christ to return the second time and find us kneeling before a false christ!

In the second angel's message of Revelation 14:6-12 and in the glorious fourth angel's message of Revelation 18:1-4, Heaven proclaims the divine call, "Come out of Babylon, My people." "Babylon is fallen," eternally fallen; the call to "come out of her" comes to every individual personally; we need to know the truth of the true Christ versus the false christ--to be able to tell the difference clearly.

The false christ is a superlatively clever deception; one simple easy place to begin to study is this: (a) has Jesus come in the sinless nature of the unfallen Adam, as many believe? Or (b) has He come truly in our fallen, sinful humanity, yet has condemned sin in the flesh of fallen humanity?

He will have "144,000" who "follow Him whithersoever He goeth," which means that they will have "come out of Babylon" and will understand the difference between the true Christ and the false one.

Read again that lovely last page of your Bible: "Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:17). The gates of the New Jerusalem are open to every soul who will be happy therein.

It is here and now that we learn to know Him, and to distinguish Him from the counterfeit.

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 25, 2009.

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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.