Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
We think it's a grand achievement when we can learn to have faith in Jesus; we "have passed from death into life." But what about Jesus Himself having faith in human beings? That's backward thinking! We trust Him, but does He trust us? What's trustworthy about us? And why would He need to trust us?
He has everything, a countless number of angels at His beck and call, infinite resources. But the Bible does say that He believes in us and trusts us, in fact, He has to if He is ever to win the great controversy with Satan. Paul asks, "What if some [Israelites] did not believe? Will their unbelief make the faithfulness of God without effect?" (Rom 3:3).
When the heavenly Father sent His only begotten Son into the world as a baby, did He not trust human beings to care for Him, especially while He was an infant? Did He not trust the virgin Mary to be a faithful mother to Jesus? Did God not trust friends to care for Jesus during the years that He lived with us on this planet? (Yes, people did crucify Him, but we read of women who prepared food for Him, took care of His laundry, and friends who invited Him to be a Guest in their homes, like Lazarus and Zacchaeus of Jericho.)
And we read of how "the faith of Jesus" comes into focus in the last days: "Here is the patience of the saints; here are those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus" (Rev. 14:12). In fact, it is the "faith of Jesus" that saves us, for He is "the author ... of our faith" (Heb. 12:2). When He died on the cross and felt forsaken by His Father, His faith triumphed. For just before He cried out, "Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit," He chose to believe and to trust that there would be a multitude of human beings around the world who would respond to the truth of His sacrifice, and who would believe and be loyal to Him. "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. For the kingdom is the Lord's. ... A posterity [seed] shall serve Him" (Psalm 22:27-30).
He forgot about His own reward. What made Him happy in those last moments was the confidence that He had won the battle, the contest was decided, and we will live forever in God's kingdom now made forever sure. Here was His total emptying of self! When He "tasted death for everyone" (Heb 2:9), it was the real thing; He died our second death. But He was happy in the confidence that He had saved us from it.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 31, 1999.
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