You Are The Man!

“You, O king, are that tree...Renounce your sins by doing what is right…It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” Daniel 4:22, 27. “Than Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man!’ 2 Samuel 12:7.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to see the sins of others but are blind to our own sins? This was the case with King Nebuchadnezzar and King David but the responses were miles apart. Daniel pled with the king of Babylon to repent of his sins and care for the poor and oppressed in an effort to show God the remorse for his pride and compassion for others. Daniel knew that more was required than simply lip service…it was time for action if God was going to change His mind. King David, however, immediately repented before the Lord with a broken heart. His pride was dismantled by the heart breaking experience of losing his child to death.

God will not allow His children to sit in pride. If we have wrapped ourselves in this garment of self-focus and status seeking, we will be stripped and re-clothed in humility. I know this story too well...I waited too long. I do not wish this season on anyone for the humility will always lie in the areas for which we have doted on the most, those areas in which we feel most entitled. God will determine the avenue of this dismantling after a season of warning. God never cuts us back without giving us ample time to cut ourselves back. He knows the condition of our hearts and determines if we are going to be unwilling to surrender ourselves. At that point, He will arise from the throne and with loving but firm discipline set up the circumstances for our dissent down.

We must examine our lives and our priorities and measure them against the walk of Jesus when He was on earth. Our lives either reflect the comparison to Jesus or the contrast. This is how we know if we are living a life of pride or a life of humility. So in the spirit of Daniel we should all identify the areas where we are that tree and flee from pride.

…and it may be that then….

Rocky Paths

“The king said to Daniel, ‘Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings…’” Daniel 2:47; “King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold…whoever does not fall and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” Daniel 3:1,6; “Then Nebuchadnezzar said, ‘Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego…’ Daniel 3:28; “(He is called Belteshazzar, after the name of my god, and the spirit of the holy gods is in him.)” Daniel 4:8.

What in the world is wrong with King Nebuchadnezzar? One chapter he is praising God with the passion and zeal of a man who has experienced a life-altering event only to grow cold the next chapter. Time goes by and he experiences another life-altering event with the same God of the universe. Chapters in the Book of Daniel separate the chapters of the king’s life. He praises, he receives and once again he forgets as he travels through his life. Now let’s not judge ol’ King Neb too harshly for we may be no better. His spiritual condition is what is described in Mark as Jesus beautifully described in a parable.

‘Others, like seed sown on rocky places, hear the word, and at once receive it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time.’ Mark 4:16-17. How many times in our own lives has an urgent need been offered in prayer to God and lovingly met by God? For a while, we are praising His name to all and sharing our testimonies, but then like our king our stories become cold. We return to our self-focused lives and praise to our God ‘only lasts a short time’ until the next urgent need arises.

When we experience God in any situation, that revelation will live fresh in our hearts only if we have allowed God access to grow deep roots. We must spend time in His word, prayer and meditation if we are to build fertile soil upon His truths. Let us not live on spiritual trampolines bouncing around emotionally not anchored in anything, responding to Him only in times of rocky moments.

As we travel chapter to chapter in our lives, let us praise God with more consistency and continuity than that of our wayward king.

A Collision with Insecurity

“I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace, contented and prosperous.” Daniel 4:4

‘Contented and prosperous’…two pursuits that seem to elude us as we chase them through life. Capturing these ghosts is as hard as identifying what makes up these words. The bottom line of this pursuit is our belief that they will bring us security.

In our lives, we all build palaces surrounding those beliefs of what it is that will secure our happiness. We build things and relationships around those who feed our insecurities giving us doses of our prescribed fixes. For me, my insecurity has always dealt with attainment of the approval and love of others. Very early in life, I decided that the more I did for people the better the chance they would approve of me. The problem came when I entered a season where my insecurity had a head-on collision with another person’s insecurity.

The more I served in that season in attempts to get my insecurity fix the more it triggered her life-long insecurity. I was consistently attacked verbally and emotionally and had never worked so hard serving in my entire life. This cycle continued for almost a year…nobody was receiving their dose of medicine.

It wasn’t until I surrendered my emotional condition to God that He was able to prescribe the perfect medicine…His love and approval no matter what. I gave myself permission to accept the fact that not everyone is going to love me or even like me. God showed me in that season that my service should be measured against the approval of God, not man. He freed me up from an emotional condition that I had nursed my entire life. ‘Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.’ Gal. 1:10.

Seeking the approval of others over the approval of God will no longer reside in my palace. My content and security will be in the Lord alone. ‘My soul finds rest in God alone…He alone is my rock…he is my fortress.’ Psalm 62:1-2

I, Brenda, am at home in my palace in Him, contented and prosperous!

It Is My Pleasure...

“It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me.” Daniel 4:2

There is nothing more powerful than the testimony of a child of God whom has been brought through the fire by the hand of God’s power. King Nebuchadnezzar spoke these words at the end of a seven year season of insanity due to his pride. God restored what was temporarily removed from his rule at the point when the king acknowledged the sovereignty and exaltation of the one true God in heaven. He went from glorifying himself to glorifying God. God will never share His glory with anyone else.

I traveled through a season that seemed like insanity in my own personal life. It was a time when I believe God allowed Satan to sift me and strip me from everything I believed about myself. Leading up to that horrible season if my words were to be written my verse would have said, ‘It is my pleasure to tell you about the wonders that I have done for …….’ The way I rolled out the tongue like a red carpet for myself sickens me. I praise God for that season of sifting and never want to be that person of pride again.

Pride is one of the hardest conditions of the heart to break. The flesh encourages us to compare, size up and predetermine others. Pride convinces us of our entitlement based on our own accomplishments and achievements. Pride puffs up while humility kneels. And as if this were not enough, the puppeteer of pride is satan. He pulls the strings of our minds and we move to his urgings of prioritizing our hearts to the ‘me first and everyone else second’ mentality. Pride yells "Look at me!" while humility kneels and points to Him.

The essence of giving glory is drawing attention so who do you give glory to?

Never Shaken...

“When I felt secure, I said, ‘I will never be shaken.’ O LORD, when you favored me, you made my mountain stand firm; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed.” Psalm 30: 6-7

One of the most convincing lies from Satan is the manipulation of our minds that we can do all things in our strength, power and wisdom. He sends idea upon idea luring us into calculating without God and running things around in our mind for which we chew on, digest and feed upon. David knew about this when he stated these words. Notice that he assigned his condition of confidence as being a feeling…not a fact.

We can easily be hypnotized by our own feelings assigning ourselves the job of resolving problems so much larger than our abilities. It is only when we assign our mountain to our God that we can assess the steadfast footing of which David speaks. When we determine our own fixes outside of the strength of God we will be despaired at the lack of results. But when we turn our face to the mountain of God we worship Him alone instead of the altars that we set up.

‘My soul finds rest in God alone…He alone is my rock…he is my fortress. I will never be shaken.’ Psalm 62:1-2. ‘…but now he has promised, “Once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens. The words ‘once more’ indicate the removing of what can be shaken – that is, created things – so that what cannot be shaken may remain. Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our “God is a consuming fire.”’ Hebrews 12:26-29.

If anything is to be shaken, let it be the actual mountain instead of our faith in the mountain Mover!

Blessed Are We....

“Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly…but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” Psalm 1:1-3.

Billy Graham correctly observed, ‘Integrity is the glue that holds our way of life together. We must constantly strive to keep our integrity intact. When wealth is lost, nothing is lost; when health is lost, something is lost; when character is lost; all is lost.’ God has called each and every one of us to live a life exemplified through the earthly walk of Jesus.

As Christians we focus on the life of Jesus as being a life of teaching and ministry. It certainly was all of this and more. We rarely focus on His day to day living since we are given snapshots of the life experiences of Christ in the Bible. There are snapshots of miracles, written accounts of seasons in the life of Jesus and testimonies of His suffering at the end. It is easy for us to lose sight of the fact that He walked this earth for 33 years. He was fearful of future events as testified in His relentless prayer life. He was separated from His parents early in life which had to leave him lonely for their presence. His ministry took Him away from the siblings with whom He had grown up. He had to experience such loneliness and fearfulness.

The level of His prayer life was directly related with the level of His challenges as Jesus walked this earth. He chose integrity over worldliness, faith over fear, and His Father’s agenda over His own. Sound familiar?

Jesus Christ had a 33 year season on earth and the fruit He brought forth is everlasting fruit for you and for me. We must walk a life of integrity with a goal of building the character of Christ in our lives producing lasting fruit and faith that will not wither.

Through our faith in God, our character in Christ and the integrity of our actions we will always prosper in whatever He calls us to accomplish.

Blessed are we…

Who Is Equal to Such a Task?

“The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.” Daniel 3:22.

We can only imagine this scene in our minds as we read the story of these devoted men of God being ushered to what appeared would end in death. They climbed the stairs to the mouth of the furnace bound and fully dressed as they prepared to die for their wholehearted devotion to God. The men who worshipped Nebuchadnezzar led them up the steps with the heat of the furnace intensifying with every step. The soldiers couldn’t even take the heat of the mouth of the furnace, as we are told they were killed. Our amazing men of God however not only survived the heat of the entrance but survived the full fury of the fire without ‘burns or even the smell of smoke.’

Every one of us will peer into the mouth of the furnace and some of us will actually fall directly into the fire. The degree of our burns will be determined by the level of intimacy for which we possess with Christ. We can be destroyed at the beginning of the fire if our faith is flimsy. It is only when we are walking with God in the midst of the fiery furnace that we are able to escape the flames’ lasting effects. We will not be consumed by the heat of the season but will be carried right out of the mouth of our furnaces triumphantly.

Like the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, when we worship something other than God it becomes instantly clear when the fire engulfs us that we will be burned. But when we live our lives ‘firmly tied’ and led by the Trinity we will not fear but be delivered from our sentence of death. We will possess the aroma of Christ instead of the smell of smoke from our fires. ‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ…To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?'

And who is equal indeed?