Daily Bread

Sunday, April 08, 2012

Does the Lord Need Our Help?

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Does the Lord need humans to do things that He wants done "in earth as it is in heaven"?

When we pray the Lord's prayer, we are confessing that His will should be done "in earth as it is in heaven"; but who is to accomplish that? Angels are His "ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation" (Heb. 1:14). But their ministry is not to do things that those "heirs of salvation" should do themselves. The Father's will never will be done "in earth as it is in heaven" until His own people get busy and do it.

A prayer that will always be answered is this, "Father in heaven, what do You want me to do?" It may be a phone call that you have shied away from; to make the call will require laying self aside! It may be a letter that you have been impressed that it is your duty to write; that too will require a denial of self. It may be a personal visit likewise that you need to make.

Welcome to the joyous thrill that is yours when you know you have done what the heavenly Father wants you to do. That means you have become a fellow-laborer with Him!

Can you think of a higher honor you could have but that--as the holy angels all step aside in deep respect to you as you DO what the Father has appointed you to do?

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: June 17, 2008.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Thursday, April 05, 2012

The Good Shepherd and Practical Living

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

How does the Good Shepherd seeking and finding His lost sheep translate into practical day-by-day living? If the Savior gives us a good faith-relationship with Himself, shouldn't it be fair for us now to "maintain" that "relationship" by (a) Bible study, (b) prayer, and (c) witnessing? If the Lord gives you a new car, isn't it fair that you "maintain" it by changing the oil, renewing the brake pads, paying the insurance, etc. etc.?

Yes, of course, only fair. But a lot of cars get dilapidated by not being "maintained," the new car thrill wears off; and also lots of people lose their "relationship with the Lord" by neglect and forgetfulness. So we have "revival" campaigns at various intervals. And of course, all that is good.

It sounds like such reasonable good sense that millions know no other way to be Christians. But when you think it through, isn't this the essence of the "by faith plus by works" idea? We're afraid of any Good News that's better than that lest making the Good News too good might lull us to sleep and we'll forget to keep the law. The "faith plus works" idea becomes immensely popular because it seems to be the only way people can stay "faithful." (The Old Covenant is loath to give way to the New Covenant.)

If the Good Shepherd has risked His own life to save the lost sheep, doesn't it make good common sense that He require the sheep now to walk its way home? Yes, of course, that's only fair; but that's not what the parable says: "When He hath found it, He layeth it on His shoulders, rejoicing" (Luke 15:5). Paul says in Philippians: "I am sure that God, who began this good work in you, will carry it on until it is finished on the Day of Christ Jesus" (1:6, Good News Bible). What does that mean? Lazy, do-nothing religion?

No; it means that through the Holy Spirit the Good Shepherd who initiated this good "relationship" now seeks to maintain it. His love is not only a finding love, it's also a keeping love. The Holy Spirit is a Person who keeps convicting us of "sin, ... of righteousness, [and] of judgment" (John 16:7-11). Be careful: don't drown His voice. That's where our problem starts.

Even Jesus when he was with us in the flesh needed His Father to wake Him up "morning by morning ... to hear as the learned." (Does the Father love you less? It seems fair and good sense to say No, He loves His Son more; but the amazing truth is He loves us just as much!) But Jesus did not resist His Father's awakening calls--as we do so often: "I was not rebellious, neither turned away back" (Isa. 50:4, 5).

Mr. Laodicea, you can't save yourself even one percent. But you can LET Christ save you, you can "LET this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus," you can "LET the word of Christ dwell in you richly," etc. (Phil. 2:5; Col. 3:16). You can stop resisting Him.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: December 12, 2003.

Tuesday, April 03, 2012

A More Effective Method of "Evangelism" (part 1)

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

We apologize for the "blackout" period the past few days in being able to send you "Dial Daily Bread." Living in a wooded area sometimes presents challenges, in this case our antenna at the top of a tall pine tree can no longer be "seen" by our Internet provider. Between storms, a tree climber will be coming to hopefully correct the problem. For now we're sending you two devotionals that hopefully will enhance your study of the new quarter of Sabbath School lessons on evangelism and witnessing.

If you are not receiving Sabbath School Today, weekly essays on the lessons, you may subscribe by writingSubscribe SST in an e-mail header or as a reply to this message. If you already receive these essays, there is no need to re-subscribe.

Blessings to you all,

Carol Kawamoto

For "Dial Daily Bread"

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Everybody who believes the Bible teaching of the second coming of Jesus must also believe that something great must happen before He CAN come again: "This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness to all nations; and [only] then shall the end come" (Matt. 24:14). It is commonly understood that this means huge expenditures of money in public meetings and TV presentations using state-of-the-art electronic facilities. Wonderful work; deserves our offerings. Huge public meetings have been held for nearly 200 years and yet world population grows faster than the combined efforts of all Protestant churches to reach them with "the gospel."

Could it be that the Bible teaches a more effective method of "evangelism," one that we have "in a great degree" overlooked?

It could be summed up in one statement Jesus made near the end of His ministry: "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said [Song of Solomon 4:12-15], out of his inmost soul shall flow rivers of living water. ... This spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive" (John 7:37-39).

It means that the humblest person who "believes in Jesus," even the uneducated, will become "a fountain of gardens, a well of living waters, and streams of Lebanon." Unconsciously, in an unstudied way, he will pour forth the ultimately powerful message. It will be that "the love of Christ constraineth us," compels, motivates, empowers, makes effective the agent who cannot help but communicate the message--all with one proviso, that he "believe in Jesus." That's what Jesus said in John 7.

It sounds deceptively simple. For two millennia people have "believed in Jesus," haven't they? And yet in spite of all our best efforts, the task gets bigger all the time. There must be something about what it means to "believe in Jesus" that we haven't yet grasped. If that "well of living water" is not flowing out from within our soul as the ultimate evangelism, it's obvious: we haven't yet learned to "believe" in the sense that Jesus meant when He spoke on "that last day ... of the feast." More next time.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 12, 2004.

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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Motivation for the "Bride" to "Make Herself Ready"

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

The Bible tells us that the time will come (let's hope soon!) when the Lord's church on earth will make "herself ready" "for the marriage of the Lamb" (see Rev. 19:7, 8). The "marriage" is something that hasn't yet been consummated, after all these 6000 years. The hold-up in the "marriage" taking place is that "His wife" (the church) obviously has NOT yet "made herself ready."

How will "she" do so? Will it be a super-efficient works program, a mighty "revival and reformation" motivated by the most intense spiritual fear ever known--the "seven last plagues" (see Rev. 16)?

No bride ever "makes herself ready" for the marriage if she is afraid of her bridegroom, and moves under coercion from him. In fact, "perfect love casts out fear" (1 John 4:18), and the word used there for "love" includes conjugal love between husband and wife (see Eph. 5:25, Greek, agape). Nothing can motivate a woman to "make herself ready" for a wedding except a heart-response on her part to what she perceives in her fiancée is genuine love.

Any bride in such a wedding is herself a little illustration of the church at last responding to the Lamb of God, her true Lover. Any respect a woman has for a bridegroom because he's wealthy (a good banker), or powerful (a general), or handsome (a movie star), or even good (a prophet), soon withers unless the man makes it abundantly clear to her that he loves her more than he loves any other woman in the world. That's what any woman is like (at least if she's in her right mind).

"The marriage of the Lamb" is based on the same principle. No church will ever "make herself ready" to marry Christ unless she has discovered the breadth, and length, and depth, and height, of the love He has for her. And being a "woman" of mature and marriageable age (in spiritual maturity), the church will come to the place where "she" will grow out of the egocentric mind-set that has characterized her supposed devotion to Him.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: November 21, 2004.

Be sure to check your e-mail for "Dial Daily Bread" again tomorrow.
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Please forward these messages to your friends and encourage them to subscribe. The "Dial Daily Bread" Web site resides at: http://1888message.org/dailybread/
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Robert J. Wieland's inspirational "Dial Daily Bread" messages are availalbe via e-mail to anyone who wishes to receive a daily portion of uplifting Good News. "Dial Daily Bread" is FREE. Due to travel or other circumstances, there may be intervals when "Dial Daily Bread" will not be sent.

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

The Domino Effect of Spiritual Maturity

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

Millions of Christians have read or heard this statement on the timing of the second coming of Christ: "Jesus came on time the first time, and we can be sure He will come on time the second time." Embedded herein implicitly is the Calvinistic idea of pre-determinism. The Father's infinite foreknowledge is thus confused with a supposed iron-clad decision on His part to send Jesus the second time at a fixed point in time, regardless of His people's preparation or lack of it.

In contrast, Scripture says the time of the second coming depends on the spiritual maturity of His corporate "body" on earth--His true church (just before His second coming it is said to "keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus," no idle or superficial designation, Rev. 14:12).

There is a kind of domino effect in a development of spiritual maturity:

(1) The "marriage of the Lamb" comes not at some predetermined triggered-mechanism of celestial time, but when "His wife hath made herself ready" (Rev. 19:7, 8).

(2) That "when" is a "harvest" of spiritual maturity becoming "ripe" (Rev. 14:15, 16; Mark 4:26-29).

(3) Christ cannot dare come before "the harvest of the earth is ripe," for it would mean His beloved people being destroyed (Heb. 12:29).

(4) This in turn means that "the church of the Laodiceans" must first "repent" of pathetic assumptions of being "rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing" and receive the true message of righteousness and justification by faith (Rev. 3:17-19).

(5) Such an experience of spiritual maturity in turn depends on "the angel of the church" receiving what "the True Witness" has long been more than willing to bestow, for "the angels" of the seven churches are in each instance their human leadership (Rev. 1:20). Throughout 6000 years of human history, leadership remains crucial, for "the church" seems unable to rise above it.

(6) This development in turn depends on the reception of the final outpouring of "the latter rain" of the Holy Spirit, a gift that Heaven has long been ready to bestow but which "the angel of the church of the Laodiceans" has apparently been unwilling to receive (see Joel 2 and Zech. 10). We cannot blame God for being dilatory!

(7) This spiritual experience in turn is needed before the earth-enlightening message of Revelation 18:1-4 can come. Many assume that because the first coming of Christ was at a pinpoint prophetic date (prophecies of Daniel 8 and 9), so the second will occur at such a predetermined point of time. As "the stars in their appointed courses know no haste and no delay," so the first coming was indeed "on time." But the second coming is different: He will come when His true people really want Him to come. That will require some growing up; a flower girl at the wedding is innocent, but she is not ready to be a bride.

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: April 26, 2000.

Monday, March 26, 2012

An Overlooked Aspect of the Third Angel's Message

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"

There's an often-overlooked aspect of the great third angel's message that creates a vacuum in our heart experience. Its absence nurtures lukewarmness--that vague sense of spiritual futility.

What's missing: the third angel's message is a Day of Atonement idea--something new in 6000 years of human history. It's the Good News of justification by faith in the light of the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary--glorious truth beyond what our dear brother Martin Luther (in all his godly sincerity) could grasp in his day.

One clear-thinking writer said that as the third angel pronounces his fearful warning in Revelation 14:9-12, he is pointing to the Most Holy Apartment of the heavenly sanctuary: "Here [is where there is] the perseverance of the saints; here are [found] they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus." They have "followed the Lamb" in His final ministry!

And the Bible supports that profound insight, because the whole of Revelation chapters 12 onwards is built upon the awe-inspiring change in the heavenly administration when the seventh angel blows his trumpet in chapter 11:15: "And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; ... And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His testament" (vs. 19)--clearly, the opening of the final phase of Christ's high priestly ministry in the Most Holy Apartment.

In past ages, Christ's ministry was preparing people to die. What is He doing now? Preparing a people for translation at His second coming. Life now is serious business; let's cooperate with Him. Let's stop "resisting Him in His office work."

--Robert J. Wieland

From the "Dial Daily Bread" Archive: August 14, 2001.