Daily Bread

Dial Daily Bread: Explaining the Gospel to the Muslims

2010-02-09T00:31:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," There are about a billion Muslims who are turned off by what many of them regard as two obstacles against their becoming Christians: (1) the Crusades of the 11th to 13th centuries demonstrate openly for all time that "Christianity" is a cruel and unjust religion (they say); and (2) the doctrine that one man's righteousness can substitute morally for another

Dial Daily Bread: Are We Asking the Wrong Question?

2010-02-06T02:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," It's a question millions of Christians have been pondering: Why has the second coming of Christ been so long delayed? He told us clearly that there would be "signs" that when we "should see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors." For a long time now, "we" have seen the "signs." And then Jesus adds, "Verily I say unto you, This generation

Dial Daily Bread: The Bible Formula for a Changed Heart and Life

2010-02-05T00:31:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," The inspired Bible formula has to be true: Listening to God's New Covenant promises + believing them = a changed heart and life (John 3:16, etc.). It's like a simple recipe in cooking: when God's promises are "mixed with faith." What comes out of the oven is genuine conversion (Heb. 4:2). That was the miracle of "the hearing of faith" that the Galatians

Dial Daily Bread: God's Challenge to His Remnant Church

2010-02-04T00:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," There’s a fascinating link between the Book of Revelation and the Gospel of John that intrigues many people. The former tells of God’s final “Voice from heaven” that will sound in the heart of a vast number around the world to “come out of Babylon, My people.” They will respond in that last hour, symbolized as “a great multitude, which no man could number, of

Dial Daily Bread: The GIFT of "Righteousness by Faith"

2010-02-01T23:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," It seems like a fantastic idea but it's like a golden thread throughout both Old and New Testaments of the Bible: proud, sinful, selfish, lustful, wicked human hearts (ours!) are changed by simply believing what the apostle Peter says are "exceedingly great and precious promises"! And they're not man's "promises." They are the Lord's. Can it really be true that

Dial Daily Bread: "More Abundant Life"

2010-02-01T06:09:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," To endure poverty that is thrust upon you unwanted is one thing; you grumble at your lot and wish you had more money. But to be content with poverty, actually to enjoy its discipline and privation, is another. And that immediately makes us think of Jesus--a hard-working peasant who in later life said He had not where to lay His head. And He said, "Blessed are

Dial Daily Bread: Christ Is a Savior FROM Sin

2010-01-29T02:48:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," At the bottom of each devotional message you will now see the date when the message was originally sent to DDB readers. To many of you, as new or recent subscribers, these messages are fresh "bread," as they are to those of us who have read them before. Elder Wieland sends his greetings to all of you, his faithful readers and friends, and asks that you join us

Dial Daily Bread: Lessons From Job (Part 3)

2010-01-28T01:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," Could you be as important a person in God's great universe as Job was? You may say, "I don't want Job's job! Give me an easier witness assignment!" But you may already have that important witnessing assignment. Both Job and Jesus chose to be loyal to God, to hold on to their faith when there seemed to be no hope whatever; and that was wonderful. They both

Dial Daily Bread: Lessons From Job (Part 2)

2010-01-27T03:00:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," There are many links that bind Job on his dung heap with Christ on His cross, and yes, links that bind him to God's people today. (1) Job had to endure his trial alone. Even his wife told him to "curse God and die." His three best friends turned against him because they couldn't understand him, and in their supposedly orthodox "Christian" way tortured him even

Dial Daily Bread: Welcome to "David's Club"

2010-01-26T21:49:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"Have you ever been opposed, misrepresented, misunderstood, and as a result, pained? Welcome to "David's Club"! The Holy Spirit has provided for you David's "Prayer Book" wherein you can find encouragement ready-made for every problem life brings to you.You know that you are unworthy to pray David's prayers as though they were your own, for he was "the anointed

Dial Daily Bread: Lessons From Job (Part 1)

2010-01-26T01:30:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread," Of all the 66 books in the Bible, Job is the one that most vividly reveals the problem all of us face in life: how to understand suffering. And that problem always resolves itself finally into one great, perplexing, painful question: who is this who hates me? Who is bringing on me this undeserved calamity? Is it God, or is it Satan? Your mind may have the

Dial Daily Bread: Truth Is Utterly Essential

2010-01-25T22:41:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century was the greatest spiritual blessing since the apostles --an unfolding of justification by faith that can never be overthrown until the end of time; it was what Paul said is "the truth of the gospel" (Gal. 2:5). Truth is utterly essential. Jesus said He is "the way, the truth, and the life" (John 14:6); He has always

Dial Daily Bread: One of Satan's Sharpest Arrows

2010-01-25T22:40:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"One of the most bitterly painful sufferings Christ had to endure at His crucifixion was the charge of megalomania leveled against Him. As He hung there on His cross naked, in agony, the people, especially the rulers of the nation, ridiculed Him for His delusions of grandeur as they put it. He's a fool! He thinks He is somebody! "He trusted in God; let Him

Dial Daily Bread: The Most Depressed Person in the Bible

2010-01-21T21:14:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"Can you name who is the most depressed person in the Bible? Job sitting on his dung-heap scraping his sores with a potsherd? Or Jeremiah weeping while he writes his Lamentations, or surely Elijah in his cave at Horeb, praying the Lord to let him die? But no, there's Another--Jesus Himself hanging on His cross in the darkness crying out, "My God, why have You

Dial Daily Bread: The Time Has Come for the "Latter Rain" Gift

2010-01-20T21:50:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,""The day of the Lord" is a day when truth comes into its own and is recognized by honest people all over the world. It's the common possession of those who form a "body" of God's people; it unites them and motivates them to action. The result: a "church" which is related to Christ as a "woman" whom He loves and wants to wed in His "marriage of the Lamb."

Dial Daily Bread: Healing at the Sheep Pool--Illustration of the Cross

2010-01-19T23:39:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"When Jesus healed the paralytic who had been sick for 38 years at the Sheep Pool in Jerusalem, He asked him no questions or to make no promises. In fact, we do not read that Jesus even preached to the sufferer first. But after He had healed the man, He found him again, in the temple. Then He said something very surprising: "'Now that you are well again, leave

Dial Daily Bread: A Painful Abscess in the Heart

2010-01-18T21:40:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"This is a story I can vouch for, having spent some 24 years in East Africa. In the days when auto roads in Uganda were dirt and narrow, an angry, threatening elephant was blocking the main road from Kampala west to the Mountains of the Moon area. Finally, the Game Warden had to be called, who reluctantly had to shoot the beast. It was found that it had a painful

Dial Daily Bread: Must We Still Today "Take Up Our Cross"?

2010-01-18T21:38:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"All through Bible history and through the history of Christianity, those who seek to follow Jesus have been opposed, ridiculed, persecuted. Always, the believer who would be faithful must "take up his cross" in order to follow the true Christ (Luke 9:23).Elijah was opposed by the government of the Israelite nation; the opposition of the king and the queen was so

Dial Daily Bread: God's Textbook for Disaster Survivors

2010-01-15T20:36:00.000-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"There are no words to describe what's happening in Haiti: tens of thousands of people swept into eternity without a moment's warning. And now the surviving multitudes are not only bereaving, but going about utterly homeless.Whether they believe in Vodou, or no god, or in the God who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Creator/Redeemer, the question

Dial Daily Bread: God's "Verdict of Acquittal"

2010-01-14T22:47:00.002-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"What the Bible teaches about "justification" is clear as sunlight, but "the little horn" of Daniel's prophecies has sought to confuse this truth. It had been God's intention that "the faith of Jesus" should lighten the earth with glory. But the great "falling away" (apostasy) that Paul predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2 (based on Daniel!) was the work of "the man of

Dial Daily Bread: Too Much New Covenant in Your Thinking?

2010-01-13T20:37:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"If you are one of many, the New Covenant/Old Covenant tension is dry-as-dust dead theology, like memorizing the Book of Leviticus. (For way too many, keeping the Sabbath holy is just that--boring!)If you have picked up the Old Covenant in school or in church (and you probably have), the idea of “following the Lamb whithersoever He goeth” frightens you. And Old

Dial Daily Bread: What Is This Thing Called Justification?

2010-01-12T22:17:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"Many ask: "What is this thing called justification? It's a big word; it's over my head; help me!" The Bible is God's word; He wants us to understand; He puts the feeding trough down low so lambs can eat. Surely He will respond to our plea.(1) The idea is simply making something crooked straight; something bad, good; something wrong, right. So, it ends up making

Dial Daily Bread: Be a Part of Christ's Solution

2010-01-11T22:18:00.002-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"A haze of confusion perplexed the minds of the Jews in the days of Christ. Their man-made ideas were contradictory and created only spiritual discouragement in the minds of the common people. Jesus cleared it away.Today there are also man-made ideas which create confusion in the minds of sincere people. They wonder if the time will ever come when God's people

Dial Daily Bread: The Message of the Cross

2010-01-11T22:18:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"Everybody knows the little song, "Jesus Loves Me, This I Know." But does the Father also love us? And did He love us before Jesus died for us? YES! "God [the Father] so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son . ..." (John 3:16). If He so loved us BEFORE Jesus died for us, then was He reconciled to us BEFORE Jesus died? YES! Did the sacrifice of Jesus

Dial Daily Bread: Who Started the War in Heaven?

2010-01-08T19:01:00.001-06:00

Dear Friends of "Dial Daily Bread,"We can understand how war breaks out in this dark, sinful world; but how could there be "war in heaven"? (Rev. 12:7) Heaven is a perfect place! Who started it? The Bible says clearly that sin originated with Lucifer, the highest of the angels (Eze. 28:12-15; Isa. 14:12-14). He sought to spread rebellion. And many angels joined him ("the third part," Rev 12:4).