Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
If we love the Good News of the gospel of Christ, we will not want to argue about the nature of Christ. We will want to flee from any place where such contention arises. The nearness of the divine Savior is too holy, too solemn, too most precious, to be submitted to the verbal violence of theological crossfire.
If one hungers to know Jesus more intimately, there is no book in the Bible where you see Him more closely bound with yourself in your human nature than in the book of Psalms. The divine Son of God has become one of us! The fact that Jesus ascended to heaven in the sight of His apostles (Luke 24:51) doesn't mean that He is far away. "Behold," He said just before He ascended, "I send the Promise of My Father upon you" (vs. 49). That "Promise" is the Holy Spirit, the presence of Jesus in the Spirit. "I will not leave you orphans," Jesus assured them, "I will come to you" (John 14:18).
How does He "come" to us? Not in the flesh; there is a closer nearness than that. It's "dwelling in the secret place of the Most High, abiding under the shadow of the Almighty" through the Word (Psalm 91:1). It's sharper in clarity than any video can be; you "see" Him, "behold" Him as "the Lamb of God," in those Messianic psalms.
In this way you "abide in [Him], and [His] words abide in you" (John 15:7). The four Gospels are wonderful revelations of Jesus; but when He walked with Cleopas and his friend that Sunday afternoon to Emmaus, Jesus didn't have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to quote--just the Old Testament, largely the Psalms. But it was there that "He expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning Himself" (Luke 24:13-27, KJV).
Now, you join those three as they walk together, the two disciples as they listen, Jesus as He "expounds." "Constrain" Him to "abide with you" when it's "toward evening, and the day is far spent," instead of seeking entertainment. Your eyes will be "opened" and like those two you will come to "know Him," too. And then, as surely as day follows night, the time will come when you will say, "Did not [my] heart burn within [me], ... while He [opened] to [me] the scriptures?" (vss. 29-32). Yes! Thank God!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 31, 2005.
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