Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The dear Lord, our Creator and Redeemer, has given each of us a "mind," that is, the mental capacity to think for ourselves, to choose which way we want to go. Sometimes we say, "I have a mind to do so-and-so," that is, we have made a choice.
"Our beloved brother Paul" has told us that our natural "mind" is "enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God; nor indeed can be" (Rom. 8:7). That is, the "mind" that we have inherited from our fallen father, Adam. It's not only the seat of our consciousness, but also the choices we have made about what to do with the life that we have. This carnal "mind" will direct our paths toward eternal loss unless we surrender it to the Lord Jesus Christ.
But we don't know how to do that unless we learn from Him. He says, "Then I said, 'Behold, I come; in the scroll of the Book it is written of Me, I delight to do Your will, O My God, and Your law is within My heart'" (Psalm 40:7, 8). Jesus was the first Man on this earth ever to say that!
He took upon His sinless nature our fallen, sinful nature so that it was as difficult for Him to give His "mind" to the Father as it is for us; He knew that the choice to give His "mind" to the Father was a path that must end on a cross where He, "self" for Him, was to be crucified.
That "self" for Jesus was as difficult for Him to give up, to surrender, as self is for us to surrender; His commitment, "I delight to do Your will" and "Behold, I come," was the choice He made not only in heaven before He came to earth but all through the 33-1/2 years of His life among us. Not the least difficult choice He ever made was His choice to stay on the cross when His enemies were deriding Him and telling Him that if He is indeed the Christ, the Messiah, "prove it!" and come down from the cross.
Once, when I was talking to some children, I asked them, "What was it that held Christ on His cross?" They answered, "The nails." To a child that seemed the logical answer to my question. But I explained to them that all the nails in the world could not have held Jesus on His cross; what held Him there was His love for us.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: February 8, 2009.
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