Will God answer your prayer for your friend’s salvation? Will He honor your witness to them about Christ? God’s answer is forged in the fiery furnace of Daniel 3. The book of Daniel presents us with faithful witness in a foreign land. That witness takes the form of kingdom alignment and allegiance through Daniel’s fellow servants of the Most High God, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. When pressed to worship a god that was no god at the jeopardy of their own lives, they affirmed, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us from your hand, O king.” Then in allegiance to the ultimate Sovereign whose kingdom is an enduring kingdom and who gives earthly reign to whom He wills, they take their stand: “But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
How does this help us to know if God will answer our prayer or honor our witness? This account displays not only a determination of faith, but also lays out a division of responsibility. God is able to answer and will do as He pleases. That’s the impetus for praying in faith. Praying in faith is praying with the conviction of God’s hearing, the expectation of God’s answering and the confidence that no matter how great is the thing we ask for, God is able to do immeasurably more than we ask or could even think. Such prayer knows, trusts, relies on, serves and submits to the will of God.
Alongside of God’s responsibility lies ours, showcased with tenacity in the stand taken by Daniel’s trio of friends. In essence we say, “God is able to save the one to whom we witness and for whom we are praying and His saving purposes will be accomplished. But if He does not, I will not shrink from my convictions or shirk my responsibility to bear witness to my Lord Jesus whose kingdom I serve.”
Keep Christ in Christian
Jesus is not only the reason for the season. He is the reason for our being. May it be our daily goal not just to keep Christ in Christmas but to keep Christ in Christian. For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever.
Reason for the Season
"Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." (Is. 1:18b). As I look at my window in southeastern Pennsylvania, snow covers the ground and its blanket grows thicker by the hour. The landscape bears its white trim. That's the coloration our God wants us to have when it comes to His transforming work of grace through Christ in respect to our sin. He colors sin scarlet. Have you ever gotten red magic marker on your hands and tried to wash it off? It is no easy task. Eventually, it does disappear. God, however, describes us as caught red-handed in our sin. Neither our scrubbing of self-reformation nor the whitewash of cover up nor the exfoliation of time will help. God Himself cleanses us from that sin, both of hand and heart, through the crimson flow of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf. By grace, through faith in Him, God looks upon us and sees His handiwork of grace in making us whiter than snow. That's what He bids us to ponder in our heart as the reason for the season: "Come, now, let us reason together, says the LORD..." (Isaiah 1:18a). Such reason will take us to Jesus Christ, who came into the world to save sinners.
When God Does Not Listen
What would it be like not to have access to God in prayer? We take the privilege of prayer for granted, forgetting the cost of that access through the shed blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, neglecting the open invitation of our God to approach Him, the scepter of His grace continually extended to us, losing sight of the power of prayer as God's ordained means for the accomplishment of His purposes.
Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. Many of those tears were shed on behalf of the people of God as he cried out to God on their behalf. Tracing the winding river of prayer through Jeremiah's prophetic word renews us in the privilege of prayer and appreciation for the access we have to the ear of God for His mercy and grace in time of need.
"Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and not not intercede with me, for I will not hear you" (7:16) Here in Jeremiah and elsewhere (e.g., 11:14; 14:11), God highlights for us the privilege of access to Him. We could bring several aspects of commentary to bear here, but at the very least we want to wake up sweaty and shaking from the nightmare of what it would be for us not to have audience with our God for our own petitions and intercession for others. We would shrink in the fear of abandonment, powerlessness and hopelessness.
Our spirits are revived when God speaks to Jeremiah, "then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you" (29:7). What is the "then" that restores God's favor and invites access and promise of God's ear? It is the promise of God's plans of the new covenant, plans bound up in Jesus Christ, plan of God's saving purpose, "plans for welfare and not for evil, to give a future and a hope" (29:11), plans where God assures us that if we seek Him, we will find Him and He will be responsive to our pleas (29:12-14). God hears our prayer because of Jesus.
Treasure prayer.
Jeremiah was known as the weeping prophet. Many of those tears were shed on behalf of the people of God as he cried out to God on their behalf. Tracing the winding river of prayer through Jeremiah's prophetic word renews us in the privilege of prayer and appreciation for the access we have to the ear of God for His mercy and grace in time of need.
"Do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and not not intercede with me, for I will not hear you" (7:16) Here in Jeremiah and elsewhere (e.g., 11:14; 14:11), God highlights for us the privilege of access to Him. We could bring several aspects of commentary to bear here, but at the very least we want to wake up sweaty and shaking from the nightmare of what it would be for us not to have audience with our God for our own petitions and intercession for others. We would shrink in the fear of abandonment, powerlessness and hopelessness.
Our spirits are revived when God speaks to Jeremiah, "then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you" (29:7). What is the "then" that restores God's favor and invites access and promise of God's ear? It is the promise of God's plans of the new covenant, plans bound up in Jesus Christ, plan of God's saving purpose, "plans for welfare and not for evil, to give a future and a hope" (29:11), plans where God assures us that if we seek Him, we will find Him and He will be responsive to our pleas (29:12-14). God hears our prayer because of Jesus.
Treasure prayer.
Crouching Sin, Hidden Desire
We bear witness in what the Apostle Paul calls a “present evil age” (Gal. 1:4) and calls us to caution because “the days are evil” (Eph. 5:15). Our witness takes place in the face of spiritual opposition. God alerts us to this in Gene. 4:6 where He says, "sin is crouching at the door; its desire is for you, but you must rule over it." To help orient us to the age in which we live, I’ve copied from my sermon blog on Genesis 4:1-16.
Our first foray from Genesis 1-3 into a post-fall world presents us with a pretty disturbing picture. We witness mangled worship, rebellion against God and unchecked emotion leading to murder, all a taste of what a world now riddled with sin will be like. We see how horrible sin is and what man in rebellion against God is capable of, especially if we allow sin to rule us to the neglect of the counsel of God. Yet in the midst of the darkness we see the sparkle of God's promise and grace that anticipates the coming of the seed of the woman that we celebrate this Christmas season. Those who look at a sin-infected world with all its horrors and conclude there is no God or an inadequate God, fail to take seriously the reality of the fall and neglect the great redeeming work of God to bring remedy and hope through Jesus Christ.
(comment from Ray) God tells Cain that sin's "desire is for [him] and [he] must rule over it," reminding us of the curse upon Eve that her "desire shall be for [her] husband and he shall rule over [her]." The language seems to point to a connection, but it is less than transparent (to me, at least).
(comment from Stan) The words "desire" and "rule" in Gen. 4:7 are identical those of Gen. 3:16, and both are expressed in the aftermath of sin's entrance. The connection for us to make could well be the active elements of contending with sin. Sin finds a friend in the desires of our hearts that are drawn to it, embrace it and cultivate it in our lives. The result of sin entering through the door of desire is that it climbs to the throne of our hearts to rule over us, and we become ensnared in it. Paul employs the same imagery in Rom. 6, where he says in vs. 12: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their passions." James 1:14-15 is also instructive for us in the ascendancy of sin.
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