Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Each individual believer in Christ is "meek and lowly in heart" as Jesus was (Matt. 11:28-30). But he will be joined to Christ by faith, which means he will say with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me" (Gal. 2:20, King James Version).
"The faith of the Son of God" is the faith by which He Himself defeated Satan in His human flesh. That flesh which Jesus "took" is the same that we all have inherited--fallen, sinful; but Jesus "condemned sin in the flesh," the "flesh" in which the Father sent Him (Rom. 8:3). In Christ, self was crucified long before He was nailed to His cross.
Even as a Boy of 12 He demonstrated that He had said "No!" to self, and "Yes!" to His Father (cf. Luke 2:49). Constantly He said, "I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me"; "I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me"; in Gethsemane He cried, "O My Father, … not as I will, but as You will" (this, at the price of sweating blood, John 5:30, 6:38, Matt. 26:39).
One who believes in Jesus truly, will open his heart to receive "the faith of Jesus" and will also "condemn sin" in his own fallen, sinful flesh. It can be done by "the faith of Jesus," and it will be done in those "144,000" who prepare for the second coming of Jesus (cf. Rev. 14:1-6).
The price? A Gethsemane-like struggle suited exactly to "the measure of faith" which God has "dealt to every" one of us (Rom. 12:3, King James Version). Satan's attacks will be terrible; but like the 30-hour bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry in the War of 1812, when the smoke cleared away and "our flag was still there," the seal of God like a flag will still be flying over each one's personal "fort" that has endured Satan's merciless bombardment.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: July 14, 2005.
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