Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
The Bible is full of comforting, encouraging assurances of the heavenly Father's unending love. He is the "Wonderful, Counselor" (Isa. 9:6) who alone understands all the intricate details of our lives since our conception (Psalm 139:7-17).
When the Bible pleads with us, "Be reconciled to God" (2 Cor. 5:20), the plea is for us to believe His character of love, that infinite though He is as the Ruler of the universe, He is also the personal, intimate "our Father in heaven" whose heart yearns for us as if we were the only person for whom the Savior gave His eternal life.
His close, intimate love goes both ways: (1) forward into our future ("I will never leave you nor forsake you," Heb. 13:5); and (2) backward to our very conception in the womb of our mother, according to that psalm.
We can't "do" anything to earn salvation; when the jailer in Philippi asked the apostles what he should "do to be saved" they told him frankly, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ" (Acts 16:30, 31). That means again, "be reconciled to God."
We sometimes think that the book of Hebrews is over our heads; but Paul ends chapter 13 with a humble, simple, heart-warming request for us to "pray for him" as though he is as needy as any of us (vs. 18). So we get down on our knees, side by side with "our beloved brother Paul" (2 Peter 3:15), and just like us, he prays for "a good conscience."
As we face our future confident that the Lord will never "forsake us" or let go of our "right hand" (Isa. 41:13), let's trust that He has led us unerringly in our past. Part of our being "reconciled" to Him includes that confidence that His leading in our past has been only faithful love.
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: September 9, 2006.
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