Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
When I was young, grey-haired pastors would tell me that the most important subject I could think about is my own personal salvation. But is there a more important, greater issue to think about than this self-centered one?
What led Christ to His cross was not such a self-centered motivation. As we ponder Scripture clues here and there we begin to discern that He was tempted as all of us humans are tempted--to seek self-preservation; but a new motivation engrossed His soul. He was concerned not for Himself, but for the preservation of the universe of God, which had been challenged by the greatest created being of all eternity--Lucifer, who by rebellion became Satan (Rev. 12:7-10). Satan's new invention was the motivation of self-seeking. Our first parents yielded to it, and therefore every human being descended from Adam has been naturally self-centered by nature.
The great battle that Jesus fought in Gethsemane and on His cross was "Not as I will, but as You will" (Matt. 26:39). In order to say His amen to that prayer, He had to surrender His own life, yes, His own eternal life. Jesus repeatedly assures us that in His becoming one with us, He took on His soul a "self" as we all have a self to contend with (John 5:30; 6:38; Luke 9:23; Rom. 15:3, etc.). But the love (agape) that He was as God, as the Son of God (1 John 4:8), confronted this "self" which He had taken upon Himself, and He denied self and all self-centered motivation. He denied His own human will.
"Easy" for Him? A zillion times, No! He wept blood as He struggled in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). And as a "most precious" gift, He has given us a new motivation for following Him--not just to get a reward for ourselves in heaven, nor just to save our own little souls, but a new capacity to sense a concern for Him. The success of His great controversy with Satan absorbs us. It's as a bride feels in her soul a new concern--for the husband who has won her love (Rev. 19:7, 8). This "growth in grace" is "present truth" (2 Peter 3:18).
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 24, 2005.
Copyright © 2012 by "Dial Daily Bread."
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