Daily Bread: July 2014

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Waiting for the Heavenly Angel

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Is it possible that we can know what Christ is thinking about now? Does He have a great purpose? It is true He is no longer a helpless Baby in Bethlehem nor hanging "forsaken" on a cross, yet He is still a human being as well as divine. His name is still "Emmanuel, which being interpreted is God with us." He will remain forever our Elder Brother, forever has sympathy with us, "made like unto His brethren, ... a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, ... able to succor them that are tempted, ... touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Heb. 2:17, 18; 4:15).

Does He have hopes and yearnings? There are statements in the Bible that indicate that yes, He does have yearnings and desires. He told us that He "will not henceforth drink of this fruit of the vine, until that day when I drink it new with you in My Father's kingdom" (Matt. 26:29). Is He fasting, at least partially?

We know that He is a disappointed Bridegroom-to-be longing for His wedding day to come (Rev. 19:7-9). We know He does not want to delay His second coming, for He loves His people who appreciate His sacrifice in their behalf and wants them to be with Him (John 14:3). We know He sympathizes with the sufferings of His people (Isa. 63:8, 9). Surely it is reasonable to understand that He longs to bring all this suffering to an end. He is waiting for the heavenly angel to tell Him, "Thrust in thy sickle, and reap: for the harvest of the earth is ripe" (Rev. 14:15).

The entire Bible is full of the idea that He loves us; and if you love someone, you must want to be with that one. We talk about how much we long for His second coming; are we to conceive of Him as icy cold, unimpassioned, unconcerned about a delay, not caring if He comes soon or maybe for a millennium?

The important truth is not ourselves, that is, how much we long for His second coming, but how much He longs to come the second time! If that is correct, then it follows logically that what hinders His coming is not that the Father stands in the way, but that "the harvest of the earth is [not] ripe" so He can come. Or to state it in another divinely inspired metaphor, "the fruit is [not] brought forth," because when it is "brought forth, immediately He putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come" (Mark 4:28, 29).

James says that He is "quietly awaiting His precious harvest" (5:7, Phillips). As a farmer eagerly watching his precious crop day by day, longing for the harvest, so Jesus yearns for His people to get ready for His coming. Let's think about Him!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 19, 2000.

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Friday, July 25, 2014

The Hardest Thing to "Do"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Suppose you have made mistakes, and your life seems ruined. You've missed out on happiness. Your very nature has made it easy for you to fall into the pit. You stand on the outside of where the party is, others are happy where the lights are on and you're thrust out into cold darkness. There's no one to blame but yourself (you may feel); there's an enormous amount of "work" to "do" before you can even begin to make things "right"; it's daunting, so many humiliating confessions to make, wrongs to make right, and debts to pay. You feel it's hopeless. Might as well give up.

Can we say something that can "save" you from the ruin you dread?

A lady once wrote a widely famous book, Steps to Christ, with the first chapter entitled "The Sinner's Need of Christ." Then she thought better of it; "This is not the way to start!" she said to herself. So the second edition began with a chapter, "God's Love for Man." Your first (and last) step is not to do something (which you can't do), but to believe what you think you can't believe: God is a personal heavenly Father much different than your earthly father ever was--He personally regards you, thinks of you, yearns for companionship with you, respects you, honors you, misses you, longs for your presence by His side, is lonely without you, hungers for some contact with you, wants to hear from you, rejoices to forgive you, in short: LOVES YOU.

Is this hard for you to believe? It probably is, if you are remotely like Paul, "The chief of sinners." The hardest thing to "do" is to believe how good God's Good News is. We weren't born believing; it's contrary to our sinful natures. It's the only difficult part of being saved--learning to believe.

Jesus Christ, the Son of God, found it just as difficult to believe as you do. In fact, much more so. Because His moment of truth came on His cross where He cried out in bitterest agony, "My God, why have You forsaken Me?" If you feel you are in hell, He knows what it's like. That's where He went to find you.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 12, 2002.

Thursday, July 24, 2014

A Statement That Was Revolutionary

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

A prolific, mature writer had come to her mid-60s when she first said it--a statement that was revolutionary. It reversed the centuries-old thinking of countless Christian people. Many times she called her readers to "behold" what happened on the cross when Jesus died for "the sins of the world." He had said, "I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all unto Me" (John 12:32). Then came this mature writer's block-buster, first-ever statement: "The sinner may resist this love, may refuse to be drawn to Christ; but if he does not resist he will be drawn to Jesus; a knowledge of the plan of salvation will lead him to the foot of the cross in repentance for his sins."

Popular Christian thinking had understood the opposite. Our "condemnation" had been seen to be the norm; unless the sinner takes the initiative to procure "this love," to acquire it, to first do the right thing by his own will, he was automatically lost. God has done His part, the ball's in the sinner's court, he must take the first "step to Christ" by his own action. You've got to do something, to be saved. Good orthodox teaching.

Now this statement maintained that you must believe something to be saved; in fact, more than that, you've got to "resist" this "drawing" of the love of Christ in order to be lost. Backwards!?

To this day, people marvel at this breakthrough insight into "the plan of redemption." Is the agape character of the love of Christ that powerful? Has "the Savior of the world" actually already given something to the sinner? Multitudes worldwide have been driven back to the Bible to see if this statement could possibly be its true teaching. Was this "mature" writer beginning to slip? The Bible has something to say:

(1) Christ has already done something for "every man"--died his final punishment for sin (Heb. 2:9). By redeeming humanity He has given humanity a title to eternal life (but the "title" can be despised and sold as Esau despised and sold his birthright--Gen. 25:33, 34).

(2) Christ's love (agape) does constrain every responsive heart to a total dedication to the One who died his and her second death (2 Cor. 5:14, 15).

(3) It's not craven fear that does this, but His much more abounding grace--stronger motivation than all our natural and acquired sin can be (Rom. 5:15-20).

(4) That "grace" is moment by moment teaching us to respond to Christ's powerful love (Titus 2:11-14); you must block your heart against it in order to be lost. (Too many do!)

(5) It's easier to live a life responsive to that love than to keep on resisting it (Matt. 11:28-30).

(6) It's true--the hardest thing one can do is to wear yourself out resisting it (Acts 26:14).

(7) That writer in her mid-60s turns out to have been right: It's totally by grace that any of us is saved (Eph. 2:4-9). Tell the Lord "Thank You!" for giving you a heart that can respond.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 5, 2004.

Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Christ has Made Us Free

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Why do so many people who go to church suffer from depression just like so many people who do not go to church? For the same reason that Abraham's free-born descendants let themselves become slaves in Egypt. They became entangled in old covenant thinking, and the apostle Paul at last had the keen insight to see that their old covenant thinking is what "gives birth to bondage" (Gal. 4:24).

It was God's intention to renew to them at Sinai the glorious liberty of new covenant experience--He had promised it to Abraham; but their slave mentality at Sinai they brought with them from Egypt instinctively drove them to choose again the old covenant experience. Their bodies were free but their minds were still in bondage.

God had promised Abraham, "'Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.' And He said to him, 'So shall your descendants be.' And he believed in the Lord, and He accounted it to him for righteousness" (Gen. 15:5, 6). But newly delivered Israel at Sinai did not so "believe in the Lord." They responded with a firm self-righteousness: "Then all the people answered together and said, 'All that the Lord has spoken we will do'" (Ex. 19:8). They didn't believe God's promise as Abraham did (at first); they made their own promise. (Even he fell back into this slippery old covenant in his affair with Hagar and Ishmael--hence modern Palestine today)

Thus God's true people at Mt. Sinai fastened themselves in their own home-grown old covenant; God did not lead them into it. Their national history thereafter, all the way to a cross outside Jerusalem's wall where they murdered their holy Messiah, was the up and down, revival and backsliding syndrome. Every revival, even that of King Josiah (2 Chronicles 34, 35) ended as in 36:14-16, "till there was no remedy." The "City of peace" with its glorious holy temple was burned, and the pagan Babylonians took the people into captivity for 70 years.

Paul's conclusion: Learn from your history! "Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free" (Gal. 5:1).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: May 22, 2006.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

The Extravagant Love of Christ

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The last rays of light that will fall on this darkened earth just before the end comes will be a revelation of God's character of love. This is Bible teaching.

That last "revelation" will obviously be the same as the light of that "another angel" who comes down from heaven having great power. The "earth is lightened with his glory" (Rev. 18:1, 2). It's not legalism gone wild, nor soft-soap emotionalism; it's love (agape).

That "glory" in turn will obviously be the same as the message Jesus describes in John 12:32, 33: "'I, if I am lifted up, will draw all to Myself.' This He said, signifying by what death He should die." That "love" which will "reveal the character of God" must be the same love that "constrains," or "compels," or motivates the ones who believe in Jesus. They are moved henceforth to live only for Him, "no longer for themselves" (2 Cor. 5:14, 15; KJV/NKJV). There is tremendous power locked away in that "love" known as agape.

Again, that revelation of love in the last days must be what Paul meant when he said that he "determined not to know anything among [the Corinthians] except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1 Cor. 2:2). That was not extremism; it was only a "reasonable service" that Paul saw as appropriate to the extravagant love Christ had shown for him (cf. Rom. 12:1). It was agape, not ordinary human love. Paul saw what we have not yet seen clearly.

In these last days when sin and selfishness will become so rampant, the Lord Jesus will be honored by "144,000" (figurative or literal) who "follow the Lamb [the crucified, risen Christ] wherever He goes. … They are without fault before the throne of God" (cf, Rev, 14:1-5). Whoever they are, there will be such a people who will glorify Christ! We might eventually be surprised who will end up in that group; let's walk humbly before Him.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 25, 2005.

Monday, July 21, 2014

An Intensely Personal “Diary” in the Bible

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

If you found somebody's lost diary (which was anonymous), and you wanted to return it, you would search for clues in it that could help you, some little details that could narrow it down to identifying the right author.

Well, we have a very personal "diary" in the Bible that appears to be anonymous. It is intensely personal, revealing secrets that people don't usually divulge to anyone, like secret battles with temptation, or anguish and distress at midnight, or anxieties that get you up before dawn. It seems to be written by some very unusual person.

(1) A clue gives it away as a teenager (vs. 9): "Wherewithal shall a young man (nah'or) cleanse his way?" "A 'nah'or' is someone between infancy and adolescence," says Strong's lexicon, pretty well narrowing down our clue to teenage.

(2) Another clue: this teen, whoever he is, has "more understanding" than all the University professors of his day (vs. 99).

(3) Another clue: he even knows more than the Supreme Court justices of his day (vs. 100).

(4) Further, he tells us that he has never set his feet in a path that leads to a sin (vs. 101). I don't know of anyone who could say that except One person.

(5) He is unusual as a boy in that "princes also did sit and speak against me" (vs. 23). He seemed to have a knack for getting "princes" all stirred up against him (vs. 161).

(6) Young as he was, he had lots of "afflictions" (vss. 67, 75, 107). Boys don't usually cry tears that young, but this one did--rivers of them (vss. 136, 145). Which must have meant--he was unusually human, as well as whatever else he was.

(7) Rather than the village handsome athlete, he says he was "small and despised" (vs. 141).

(8) People who loved truth seemed attracted to him (vs. 63), so he was never utterly alone until at the very end of his life when everybody forsook him (Isa. 63:3).

Many artists have tried to picture Jesus as a boy; it will do your soul good to ponder this portrait of Him in Psalm 119.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 22, 2003.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Set Free From Condemnation Forever

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Justification is the best good news anyone will ever hear, for it is the proclamation from God Himself that sets you free from condemnation forever. It's the news that you walk out of prison. Imagine you've been on Death Row, and you are at last vindicated or acquitted! You'd be very happy, wouldn't you? Now, be happier "in Christ"!

Some are perplexed by what they assume is a contradiction in Romans 5. In verse 1 we read that we are "justified by faith," that is, by the believing that we do here and now, experientially. It seems to say that nothing happens until we believe, and that the initiative is up to us. But in verse 9 we read that we are "justified by [Christ's] blood," and that blood was something that happened and was shed 2000 years ago when He died on His cross.

When we are "justified by faith," there are seven blessings we experience according to Romans 5: (1) "we have peace with God," (2) "we have access ... into this grace wherein we stand," (3) we "rejoice," (4) "we glory in tribulations," (5) we are no longer "ashamed," (6) "the love [agape] of God is shed abroad in our hearts," (7) "the Holy Spirit .. is given unto us."

Now the big question: are all these blessings the result of our doing something? Do we trigger all this? Have we taken the initiative? Or is all this the consequence of something that Christ accomplished on His cross, and now at last we have heard of it and we believe it?

It is ONE justification, accomplished totally by the Savior of the world. But appreciated, believed, experienced, by the repentant sinner, who lets it change his heart and his life. At last he lets the Holy Spirit change him; he stops resisting Him. Let that blessed one be you!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 9, 2005.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The New Covenant for Your Soul

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

If you could hear a Voice from heaven declaring unto you, “This is My beloved son in whom I am well pleased,” and could see the face of Jesus actually smiling upon you, you could probably be happy enduring any trial or disappointment. When we long for some human face to smile upon us, what we really want deep down is to see the smile of the Son of God.

But we are so conscious of our shortcomings, our failures, and yes, our sins, that we endure unhappy days. Clouds cover the sunlight we seek. In these last days of God’s great antitypical Day of Atonement, the Lord wants us to understand more clearly how good is the Good News of His “everlasting gospel” that is to be “preached to every nation, kindred, tongue and people” (Rev. 14:6, 7). And Revelation describes a further message which will “lighten the earth with glory” which obviously will make the gospel truth crystal clear to every heart that’s willing to listen to truth (18:1-4).

But you don’t have to worry and wish you could hear that assurance spoken from heaven to you. When Jesus was baptized in the River Jordan and came out of the water, the Holy Spirit like a dove came down upon Him and the Voice spoke from heaven, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). But the Father was putting His arms around you too! The Bible makes it clear that when the Father accepted His Son, He accepted us “in Him.” When He “gave His only begotten Son” for us, He bought us with that Price; which means that he loves us identically as He loves His Son (cf. Eph. 1:6).

You may think that is hard to believe. But wait a moment: suppose you go to a store and pay $20 for an item that you think is a good value. By doing what you did, you are declaring that you love that item equally with your love for the $20 you gave for it. The Father loves you as much as He loves His Son! He is “well pleased” with the purchase He has made. In Christ you are one of Abraham’s descendants, and the seven promises God made to him in Genesis 12:2, 3 are made equally to you!

Those promises and that declaration are the New Covenant to your soul. When you come to the end of your way, the only regret you will have is that you didn’t believe them as wholeheartedly as you should! Jesus believed the assurance given Him that day of His baptism; that’s why He succeeded in overcoming all of Satan’s temptations to Him in the wilderness (Matt. 4:1-11).

Get the point? That kind of faith is your victory, too. You get that faith from Him. Open your heart to receive the gift.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the “Dial Daily Bread” Archive: March 6, 2006.

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Welcome the Holy Spirit Into Your Fellowship With God

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There are different kinds of "meditation": there is the popular Eastern kind, "yoga," induced by a trance or bodily contortions. This is a direct link to Hinduism, which professes to be a very "spiritual" religion. There is "transcendental meditation" which claims to be religiously "neutral." These forms of meditation are a search for a "higher form of consciousness," actually a search for "divinity within oneself." The idea is that God is everywhere--you just need to search him out. He is inside you, unrecognized; you make contact with him through these forms of "meditation."

Beware; the root idea is pantheism, and it leads one into spiritualism, away from Christ.

The Bible teaches the true, healthy experience of meditation: Isaac, a faithful, God-reverencing young man "went out to meditate in the field at the eventide" (Gen. 24:63). Precious experience! And we know what he was meditating about--yearning to meet his one and only, Rebecca. David would lie awake at night, he says, "to remember [the Lord] upon my bed, and meditate on [Him] in the night watches" (Psalm 63:6). He begs the Lord to give him the gift of the Holy Spirit so that "the meditation of my heart [may be] acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength, and my Redeemer" (19:14).

Does this take time? Of course! Does it require mental application? Disciplining the thoughts? Self-control, so you don't go to sleep all the time? Yes! You discipline your thoughts, "casting down imaginations, ... and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. 10:5). You base your meditation on biblical truth; you exercise control of your mind, and thus you welcome the Holy Spirit into your time of spiritual fellowship with God--who is your personal Heavenly Father and Savior from sin. Cherish such meditation!

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 2, 2004.

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

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

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

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 or 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. 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.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 30, 1999.

Monday, July 14, 2014

The Shape of Things to Come

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The shape of things to come is becoming more sharply focused day by day. Two world movements are aligning themselves for the last great conflict: the “beast” of Revelation 13 (same as the little horn of the fourth beast of Daniel 7), versus the third angel’s message of Revelation 14:6-12.

Those who accept the latter will worship the Lamb, the Christ of the cross who by His sacrifice “tasted death for every man.” And those who worship the beast and his image will worship self. The self-righteousness of the old covenant will be the worship of the beast, and the imputed and imparted righteousness of Christ will be the worship of the Lamb. One will be faith in the promises of God, the other will be the “righteousness” of human promises. One will appreciate the breadth, depth, length and height of “the agape of Christ which passeth knowledge” (Eph. 3:14-21), and the other will become a false view of the cross, a counterfeit misrepresentation of the gospel which will be the worship of a false “hrist.” And so clever will the deceptions be that “if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect” (Matt. 24:24).

We are told by an inspired prediction that in that final hour “a great proportion” of those who “are supposed to be genuine” will “betray sacred trusts,” and take their side with the avowed enemies of the truth. If this present generation, as many have affirmed, is the last before the second coming of the true Christ, the Holy Spirit must be calling us to sober thinking. Is it really possible that old covenant thinking can lead at last to final apostasy? Well, the answer is that it certainly did so for ancient Israel. It led them to crucify their true Messiah.

Could anything be more important than for us to learn now what it means to “worship the Lamb”? To “glory” in nothing “save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Gal. 6:14)? How to “survey that wondrous cross, on which the Prince of glory died ...”? To appreciate what it cost Him to save us? Humble, contrite hearts will worship the Lamb; proud, self-satisfied ones (“rich and increased with goods”) will worship the beast and his image.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the “Dial Daily Bread” Archive: November 3, 1998.

Friday, July 11, 2014

The Work of God Is Done Without Great Fanfare

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The greatest, most important event ever to happen on planet earth was the birth of the "Savior of the world," Jesus, in Bethlehem. Yet it was unheralded in the media of that day except that the angel told a few shepherds, "Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people" (Luke 2:10). The message was proclaimed by a few apostles.

The book of Revelation tells of "another angel fly[ing] in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel [again, good tidings of great joy] to preach to those who dwell on the earth" (14:6, 7). This movement is to come in the last days, and it has come. But be careful--don't wait for the media to plaster this news all over the TV and the Internet. No angel from heaven screams in your ears; the message comes like it came to the humble shepherds, more like "a still, small voice" (1 Kings 19:12). Unless you and I are careful, this new "angel flying in the midst of heaven" can do his job, fly on, and we never know what's happened. The work of God was done after Pentecost without great fanfare; it's being done today likewise, in humble ways. But it is being done.

Jesus describes it: "'I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself.' This He said, signifying what death He would die" (John 12:32, 33). In other words, Heaven also has its "media," some kind of organization for getting the word out.

Heaven is determined that the Son of God must not die in vain, in secret; humble instruments are to be moved by the Holy Spirit to proclaim the message of "Christ and Him crucified" worldwide. The great ones of earth are again to be surprised at the humble means that God will employ, no great, arrogant men and women. Only those will be employed in this work who have knelt at the cross of Jesus where self (pride!) is crucified with Him.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 24, 2005.

Tuesday, July 08, 2014

What Are the "Exceedingly Great and Precious Promises"?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It's all very good to believe what Peter says about "receiving" and believing the "exceedingly great and precious promises" (2 Peter 1:4), but what are the "promises" themselves? They must be understood and "received" into the heart; then they go to work and deliver the most sinful, polluted, selfish worldly heart so that we become actual "partakers of the divine nature."

Well, let's start with John 3:16: Believe, appreciate, comprehend, the love of the Father when He gave Christ to us forever. "Whosoever believes in Him" will not commit spiritual and material suicide (that word "perish" is in the middle voice of the Greek verb!). New Covenant!

Then look at the seven grand promises God made to Abraham under the New Covenant (Gen. 12:2, 3). You are his child by faith (Gal. 3:9). Therefore they are all promises God makes to you. Believe them. (Someone will tell you that you must work hard in order for them to come true; let subtle Old Covenant thinking become New Covenant: the love [agape] of Christ will "constrain" you to work hard with no thought of reaping your reward.)

Then take a look at the Lord's Prayer (Matt. 6:9-13). Jesus invites anyone in the world, even the most terrible sinner, to pray that prayer. The New Covenant goes to work because the one who will "cry out, Abba, Father!" receives "the Spirit of adoption" (Rom. 8:15). You can't pray "our Father" without your heart being melted!

Then read the 23rd Psalm. Anybody in the world, even the most hardened sinner, can pray sincerely, "The Lord is my Shepherd," and his stony heart will be broken in contrition. The New Covenant Psalm "works." The word itself has power (Rom. 1:16).

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 12, 2006.

Monday, July 07, 2014

It Sounds Impossible, but Jesus Actually Said It

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

It sounds impossible, but Jesus actually said it: the Father has hidden precious truth from "the wise and prudent" people! They may weary themselves in their search for it, to no avail. It's a warning to us common, lowly people, not to let them do our thinking for us.

The context was Jesus "upbraid[ing] the cities in which most of His mighty works had been done, because they did not repent." Their refusal to repent gives us a clue to this apparently impossible prayer Jesus prayed: "I thank You, Father, ... because You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes" (Matt. 11:20, 25).

Wise and prudent people find it difficult to humble themselves. They gravitate toward becoming prophets of Baal. Heart-melted repentance is the only appropriate human response to Christ unveiling Himself in His revelations of truth. When the Holy Spirit meets the wall of arrogant human resistance, He humbly withdraws Himself and leaves the "wise and prudent" to patter on, unconsciously devoid of His presence. The common people are bewildered, for they naturally detect that the Emperor has no clothes on. "The [vociferous] labor of the foolish wearieth every one of them, because he knoweth not how to go to the city" (Eccl. 10:15, KJV).

Paul tells the lowly, humble people, "You see your calling, .. that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, ... and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, ... that no flesh should glory in His presence" (1 Cor. 1:26-28).

If you are one of the "common people" who hears Jesus "gladly" (Mark 12:37), don't "glory" over the "wise" and "noble." Be humble; the Father's rejection of them is not total--just of "many." They can repent if they will listen. If you were "wise" or "noble" you might be proud, too. Thank God we common people can welcome a mode of repentance always.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: March 21, 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 03, 2014

Open Your Heart to Your Heavenly Father

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

When Jesus gave us permission to address His Father as "our Father which art in heaven," He gave us complete confidentiality with Him.

He emphasized secrecy (Matt. 6:1-6): (a) We are not to make our acts or gifts of worship to be "seen of men"; (b) we are not to seek "glory of men"; (c) we are not to let our left hand know what our right hand does--here again is ultimate secrecy; (d) thy "Father … seeth in secret"; (e) when we pray to Him, we are to "enter into thy closet, … shut thy door, [and] pray to thy Father which is in secret"; (f) then "thy Father which seeth in secret ... shall reward thee openly."

The word "Father" brings up the most tender memories of our childhood, yes, babyhood. The first syllable we could utter as a baby was "ba"--which became our "Ba-ba." We revered our earthly father; as children, to us he stood in the place of God. His task was to reveal the heavenly Father to us, and to interpret to us correctly His love, His fidelity.

This is the idea in Romans 8 where we read, "Ye have not received the spirit of bondage ... to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father" (vs .15).

Our first cry as a baby is not "Abba, Father," but "abba, father." We don't know yet to cry to God; our earthly father interprets God to us. If he is a God-reverencing person, kind, unselfish, loving, then he is interpreting the love (agape) of the heavenly Father to us. Rejoice and be exceeding glad; you are very fortunate.

Sometimes an earthly father does not know how to interpret to the child the love (agape) of the heavenly Father. In those cases it can become emotionally difficult for the person to learn to be happy "in Christ"; but don't turn away, never, not for a moment. Let your heavenly Father intervene: He is much, much greater than your earthly father; His influence in your life is out of all bounds far greater than the influence your earthly father was to you; yes, let Him into your life.

Share with Him alone (that's what it means that Jesus said, "shut your door to your closet"), open your heart with all your shame and guilt. Your heavenly "Father seeth in secret." He alone is your true "Father-Confessor." Pour it all out to Him "in secret"; He will reward thee "openly," that is, with full salvation, healing, in Christ.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 9, 2008.