I was going through my yearly bible reading today while on the road, and began the book of Daniel in the plan.
I love this book....Spoiler alert...It's literally my favorite book in the entire bible, not only because of all the historic prophecies that have been fulfilled. But there is one verse I credit for my conversion to Christianity...
Obviously, there was much more to it than this, but when I put secular history and matched it with the book of Danile and the prophecies of chapter 2, 8, 8 and 9....I was hooked. And this verse alone, if you study history, will cement your faith in Scripture.
But that's a study for another day lol
So back to my daily readings, I went through Daniel 1,2 and 3 today. And briefly the TLDR version of each chapter goes like this:
Chapter 1 - Daniel and the 3 Hebrews challenge the 'diet' of their captors. By eating a diet from the garden of Eden, they show the rulers of Babylon, that God's original diet is always best.
Chapter 2 - The king's dream which lays out prophetically world kingdoms and their rise and fall throughout history. With pin point precision at that.
Chapter 3 - The 3 Hebrews are tested and do not bow down to the king's statue. Because of this, they are thrown into the fiery furnace and God protects them.
Here's my 'aha' moment for these three chapters...Daniel and his friends didn't just 'get faith' when they needed it. They didn't just start praying to God for miracles and revelations. They didn't just start eating healthy all of a sudden...
Far from it.
You see, Daniel and his friends were young when they arrived in Babylon. So that tells us that they were brought up in a household that worshipped God. And their prayer life and devotional life mattered to them.
And because of those habits they formed throughout their lives, they were ready or excuse me, God got them ready for when the trials came.
There's something very important to note as well on top of those object lessons of steadfast faith, and that is that God never 'saved' the friends from the fire. They were thrown in. Here's what God did, He saw them and protected them THROUGH the fire.
I think this is important because we see in Scripture that the last days can come at anytime, and if we think God is going to miraculously 'rapture' people up that never worshipped Him or spent time with Him, that's just insanity to me. A relationship can't be built when it's one way. He wants to spend time with us because He knows, there will be trials and tribulations the longer this world goes on.
And it's not 'saved from' this world....It's saved THROUGH this world.
But it has to start with us now. Spending time in His Word. Prayer. Fasting. Developing a Christ-like character so that when those trials do come, and they will, we will reflect our Savior!
Thoughts from Daniel ;)
We'd love to have you join and take part in both the Kingdom community on chain as well as it's Discord channel. We are a friendly bunch, that love to discuss religion and our walks with Jesus. We'd love to see you!
Also, I have a healthy amount of #bbho that I upvote with in the BBHO Community. If you add #bbh to your blog posts tags, I'll make sure to give you a hefty upvote as well!
If you leave a thoughtful comment on any of my blog posts (and find the hidden words in my videos...) I'll send you some HSBI shares as a reward for engaging with me.