Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"
Does the Lord Jesus Christ really needus? Is He not the Omnipotent One? So is He not automatically the Victor in His "great controversy" with Satan? Does it really matter to Him if we are loyal or disloyal? And in the long run, won't He win irrespective of our loyalty?
Let's back up to the Great Event on Calvary's cross: When Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane we read that "all the disciples forsook Him and fled" (Matt. 26:56). Let us not forget that Jesus, although He was the divine Son of God, had laid aside the prerogatives of His divinity, and He was now the "Son of man." He was living our life, as One of us, feeling as we feel.
The pain of those spikes driven into His ankles and wrist bones was horrible, but it was nothing compared to the pain of His soul when His chosen ones, the Eleven (Judas had already forsaken Him), turned away from Him. In the horror of the moment, could He have been tempted to fear that His mission might ultimately fail? After all, weren't these Eleven a prophecy of the ultimate end of His "great controversy" with Satan?
Wouldn't it have been wonderful if at least one of the Eleven had firmly declared to the Romans, "If you crucify this Man, you crucify me, too!"? But there is no such story in any of the four Gospels; there is no such Hero for any of us to exult in.
Whoever we could be today, the truth is that the Lord Jesus does need us to be loyal to Him. It's too late for Him to have to feel sad that we too have done what the Eleven did long ago. It's time for "144,000" of the weakest and most unworthy of earth's inhabitants to "follow the Lamb wherever He goes" (Rev. 14:4). That's our glorious opportunity!
--Robert J. Wieland
From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: January 15, 2009.
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