Dear Friends of “Dial Daily Bread,”
Let's say a word in behalf of those who sincerely want to follow Jesus yet meet setbacks, discouragements, frustrations, and disappointments. It seems their prayers go nowhere. Could it be that perhaps God has not accepted them? They must stand Outside, watching the party going on Inside; if God has accepted them as members of His family, why are they tormented by doubts and fears?
Here is great Good News for them: Jesus had precisely the same problem! His was an up and down experience. The "up" was His baptism, the brightest, sunniest day of His life, for He heard this Voice from Heaven, "This is My Beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" (Matt. 3:17). Who wouldn't be in a state of blissfulness forever after hearing that? But then, says Mark, immediately came the "down." He felt Himself "led up ... into the wilderness" of heart-rending temptation to doubt.
An awful temptation almost overthrew Jesus right after that glorious baptism. Was He indeed the Father's "beloved Son"? "If You are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread." He was in agony, not only from physical hunger and weakness (when for all of us temptation is most fierce), but also spiritually.
The tempter wrung His soul with plausible Bad News logic and rationale: if You really are the Son of God, how could You be alone, bereft of friends and help in this desert with wild animals all around You, hungry, emaciated, forsaken? If You really are the Son of God, prove it! Take a bungee jump off the temple pinnacle--settle it forever in Your soul when You see God rescues You! Forget this hallucination that You are the Messiah; You never heard a real Voice at Your baptism, You only thought You did. Join the crowd, the world; otherwise You'll never amount to anything! (Matt. 4:1-11).
Finally, on His cross that barbed and poisoned arrow tip was shot at Him again: "If Thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross." Prove it by doing something no crucified criminal has ever been able to do! Easy, if You are the Son of God! How can You otherwise expect us to believe You? That moment was His lowest "down." But He wasn't "out." He chose to believe the Word. That Voice at His baptism was nothing more than a direct quotation from the Bible words of the Old Testament (Psalm 2:7; Isa. 42:1).
You hear that same Voice speaking to you in the Bible. Do like Jesus did--make a choice to believe it.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 14, 1999.
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