Before Anything Happened

This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Take that apart slowly, because every clause of it is a quotation.

Thou art my Son is Psalm 2, a coronation psalm, spoken over a king at his enthronement. In whom I am well pleased runs alongside Isaiah 42: Behold my servant, whom I uphold; mine elect, in whom my soul delighteth. The first belongs to a throne. The second belongs to the servant who will be bruised for other people. Both land on the same man in one breath at a river, and anybody standing on the bank who knew the scriptures heard a crown and a cost arrive together.

Then notice when it is said. Jesus has preached nothing. He has healed nobody, called nobody, written nothing. The public record at this point is thirty years in a carpenter's shop in a town about which Nathanael would later ask whether any good thing could come out of it. Well pleased is spoken over a life with no ministry in it yet.

And notice what happens next. He is led into the wilderness, and the first words out of the tempter are If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. The attack goes straight at the sentence from the sky, and it goes there within days. Being told the truth by God protects nobody from being asked to prove it afterwards.

If that voice had said those words over you before you had done a single thing, which of the things filling your week would you still be doing on Monday?

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 69 is Resurrection Power (Romans 8:11).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two