SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 2/11/2014
12:52 PM
My Worship Time Focus: Day 4 of
Reviewing Daniel
I mentioned in yesterday’s SD that today’s SD would be
number 1000 on this blog sight. We will
continue in our review of the book of Daniel looking at a couple more points
from this great book.
Daniel’s Desire was only to Please God: We see this from the early chapters in the
book of Daniel as Daniel decided not to eat the king’s food, and I believe that
this was the beginning of Daniel seeking only to please the Lord. We see in Daniel 2:28 the following words “"However,
there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and He has made known to King
Nebuchadnezzar what will take place in the latter days.’” Notice the humility in how Daniel’s tells the
king what he wanted to know. We saw
earlier that Daniel went to his friends and told them it was time to have a
prayer meeting, and then the Lord graciously gave him the answer that he was
praying for, and then Daniel humbly tells the king the answer not forgetting to
bring glory to the Lord for it was God who gave Daniel the answer. It was also God who gave the dream to the
king in the first place, just like He gave the dream to Pharaoh and then the
answer to Joseph.
In chapter four we actually see that Nebuchadnezzar
glorifies the Lord after the Lord humbled him where we read the following from
Daniel 4: 35 "All the inhabitants
of the earth are accounted as nothing, But He does according to His will in the
host of heaven And among the inhabitants of earth; And no one can ward off His
hand Or say to Him, ’What have You done?’”
However there was a problem with Nebuchadnezzar’s son
Belshazzar who refused to be humbled by the Lord and refused to bring glory to
the Lord so the Lord had the Medes and Persians conquer Babylon in one day and
Belshazzar was killed in the process.
Dr. Wiersbe writes “Throughout his long life, Daniel was
a great man in the kingdom, but he used his gifts, abilities, and opportunities
to honor God and minister to others. It
has well be said that true humility isn’t thinking meanly of yourself, it is
just not thinking of yourself at all!”
Daniel Realized that he had a Work to Do: One of the great things that I admire about
both Joseph and Daniel is that they were, at a young age, thrown into something
that was very difficult and yet both of them realized that the Lord had put
them in the position that they were in.
Towards the end of Joseph’s he told his brothers: “20 “As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in
order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. 21 “So
therefore, do not be afraid; I will provide for you and your little ones."
So he comforted them and spoke kindly to them (Genesis 50:20-21),”
I just finished a book that was written by Phil Robinson
who is famous for beginning “Duck Commanders” and also is on the show “Duck
Dynasty.” He is a fellow believer and
has been for many years. At the end of
his book his oldest son wrote the following statement that pricked my heart and
also I believe was something that both Joseph and Daniel lived by: “Son, don’t every tell people how good or
great you are at something; let them tell you.”
(Alan Robinson).
Daniel had much to do in his job as a government
employee, and also a prophet and writer, yet Daniel knew that the work that he
had to do was given to him by the Lord.
I truly believe that God gives all of His children work to do as we see
in the following verse from Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good
works, which God
prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.”
Daniel was tactful and considerate: Daniel followed the words that Paul wrote to
Timothy where he writes “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but
be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged.” Daniel had high ranking positions under four
different kings from two different kingdoms, and yet he did not use force in
going against his enemies, but remembered that the Lord was in control. Daniel was surely tactful and gave
consideration to his words that he would say to others. Let us look at an example from the very first
chapter in the book of Daniel where Daniels says the following to the one over
him: “But Daniel said to the overseer
whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah,
Mishael and Azariah, 12 “Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be
given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. 13 “Then let our appearance be
observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the
king’s choice food; and deal with your servants according to what you see.’” (Daniel 1: 11-13)
We know that Daniel did not respect what the kingdoms
believed in and how they ran their empires, but Daniel had respect to the
offices that the men who were over him.
This took a lot of faith and courage in the Lord to do this. It is a shame that some believers today have
a holier than thou attitudes, but when one thinks about that they are more like
the Pharisees of Jesus’ day than the true humble believer that they should be
like.
Spiritual meaning
for my life today: Dare to be a
Daniel who was humble and also realized that not all things work out the way
that he might have wanted for them to work out, but did not complain of his
lot, since he trusted the Lord to work out things Daniel’s good, and also for
the glory of God.
My Steps of Faith for Today: I desire to remember that humility is
something that I need to possess.
Memory verses for the
week: Philippians 2:5-6 “5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was
also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, although He
existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be
grasped,”
Answer to yesterday’s Bible
Question: “The Holy Spirit” (Acts 13:2).
Today’s Bible
Question: “Of what country was Asa king?”
Answer in our next SD.
2/11/2014 2:50 PM
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