The Daily Devotion (Daniel 6)

If being a Christian was a crime, would they find enough evidence to convict you?

Living like Jesus is rare. Where do you see true, sacrificial love, a love that dies every day for the good of the others?

We never have to look far to find Christians who are in it for what they can get out of it. Honestly, we often only have to look in the mirror.

So it’s no wonder that Christians and churches are the subject of such hatred. Even if the world does the same evil, everyone knows that Christians should be better. And we should.

In Hebrews 11:33, Daniel is referred to (without mentioning his name) as one of those people who, by faith, ‘stopped the mouths of lions.’

But does God expect us to just be brave like Daniel? To just try harder to have faith like his faith?

As always, the answer is not ‘Try harder!’ The answer is ‘Follow Christ!’

As we think about this familiar story, everything that we see in Daniel should point us to Jesus Christ and how He calls us to live by faith Him. So, what will that look like?

The Disembodied Decree (Daniel 5)

When we left Daniel at the end of chapter 4, we heard these stunning words from the pagan king Nebuchadnezzar: ‘Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride he is able to humble.’ (Daniel 4:37). The greatest king of his age, and confessed that the LORD God of Israel is the sovereign ruler of everything and everyone! Nebuchadnezzar seems to have really become a believer. Has the Government sphere has been reclaimed for God? Will his successors also follow the LORD?

There couldn’t be a more start contrast between Nebuchadnezzar and the next ruler of Babylon we’re introduced to. Daniel jumps years into the future. 3 other kings have ruled Babylon: Amel-Marduk (562-560 BC), Nergal-Shar-Susur (560-556 BC) and Labshi-Marduk (556 BC). They’re all named after Babylonian gods. And so is the ruler we meet here: Belshazzar (co-regent with his father Nabonidus 556-539 BC).

He doesn’t follow the LORD. In fact, he shows his pride and arrogance: He thinks he has got God under control! (v2).

He will not learn from his ancestor Nebuchadnezzar, so he has to learn for himself that ‘it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Hebrews 10:31).

So what is God’s message to us today? It is this: If you know that God graciously forgives sin, but you do not turn from your sin to receive His grace in Jesus, you fall under His righteous judgement.

At Home with the Lord (2 Corinthians 4:13-5:10)

Some people like camping. Some people love camping. But I’m not one of them. Sure, I’ve got plenty of fond memories of setting up a tent in the backyard or by the beach. And just as many memories of lying on rocks, breathing smoke from campfires, and meeting friendly mosquitoes.

Okay, so maybe camping isn’t that bad. But would you choose to live in a tent instead of a house? Sure, a tent can be okay for a weekend, but eventually the ropes start to loosen, the canvas will sag, and the weather just can’t be kept out.

When he was Prime Minister (in 1993), Paul Keating said, ‘If you’re not living in Sydney, you’re just camping out.’ But God’s message to us today is, ‘If you’re not in heaven, you’re just camping out.’ Here in 2 Corinthians, God tells us that our present bodies are temporary, but in heaven we will have permanent bodies so that we can live with Him forever.

That challenges so much of how we think. We don’t think much about death or heaven, unless we’re really sick! Do we live like everything we have here is temporary? I suspect that for most of us, even if we’re Christians, we invest far more time and energy into material things that will not last. That’s materialism, and its roots go down deep into our hearts.

Now, if we’ve thought about that for very long, we might have concluded that God’s only interested in spiritual stuff. If that’s right, then we’ve only got one opportunity to really enjoy life (1 Corinthians 15:32)! If we think that, we’ve fallen for dualism: that the idea that the body and the spirit are opposites, that physical things are always bad and spiritual things are always good, and so death means leaving our bodies behind forever.

The problem with both materialism and dualism is this: They aren’t how God made the world, or us! Here, Paul tells us that God made us to live our physical lives now for His glory (4:13-18), and to live forever with Him (5:1-10). Our lives will be completely different when we know what God has made us for.

Are We Listening? (Romans 4:11)

Romans 4:1-25 (NKJV)

What then shall we say that Abraham our father has found according to the flesh? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? “Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.” 4 Now to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace but as debt.

5 But to him who does not work but believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is accounted for righteousness, 6 just as David also describes the blessedness of the man to whom God imputes righteousness apart from works:

7 “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven,
And whose sins are covered;
8 Blessed is the man to whom the Lord shall not impute sin.”

9 Does this blessedness then come upon the circumcised only, or upon the uncircumcised also? For we say that faith was accounted to Abraham for righteousness. 10 How then was it accounted? While he was circumcised, or uncircumcised? Not while circumcised, but while uncircumcised. 11 And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had while still uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all those who believe, though they are uncircumcised, that righteousness might be imputed to them also, 12 and the father of circumcision to those who not only are of the circumcision, but who also walk in the steps of the faith which our father Abraham had while still uncircumcised.

13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. 14 For if those who are of the law are heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of no effect, 15 because the law brings about wrath; for where there is no law there is no transgression.

16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed, not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all 17 (as it is written, “I have made you a father of many nations”) in the presence of Him whom he believed—God, who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did; 18 who, contrary to hope, in hope believed, so that he became the father of many nations, according to what was spoken, “So shall your descendants be.” 19 And not being weak in faith, he did not consider his own body, already dead (since he was about a hundred years old), and the deadness of Sarah’s womb. 20 He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief, but was strengthened in faith, giving glory to God, 21 and being fully convinced that what He had promised He was also able to perform. 22 And therefore “it was accounted to him for righteousness.”

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone that it was imputed to him, 24 but also for us. It shall be imputed to us who believe in Him who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was delivered up because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.

Sown Perishable, Raised Imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:29-49)

  1. Do Not Be Led Astray (v29-34)
  2. Transformed, Not Disembodied or Reanimated (v35-41)
  3. Spiritual Bodies Like Christ (v42-49)

1 Corinthians 15:29-49 (NIV 2011)

29 Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptised for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptised for them? 30 And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31 I face death every day – yes, just as surely as I boast about you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus with no more than human hopes, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’

33 Do not be misled: ‘Bad company corrupts good character. 34 Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God – I say this to your shame.

35 But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: people have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour.

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.