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Daniel 3:16-18 and 28 NASB


Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”


Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.


Personal Challenge…


Sometimes we must go through the fire in order to truly serve our God. In all cases, whether being thrown into the fire or in the most supportive and rewarding of situations, we must stand firm in our commitment to Him and never compromise His truths. We may never know what the outcome will be for doing this. The outcome may even be much less than what we desire or expect. But God has the master plan and the view of past, present and future therefore He knows what is the best outcome of standing firm for Him.

Proverbs 25:4 NASB
Take away the dross from the silver, And there comes out a vessel for the smith;

Encouraging Words…
Ahhhh, so this is what all the heat and pressure in life is about. It is God melting away the dross that pollutes my life so that He, the Master silversmith, can create a vessel that He can use. It is only by the grace of a loving God that the amount of heat and the time in the fire is controlled by the Master.

Psalm 51:17 NASB
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

Personal Challenge…
God does not want our stuff or our promises or our “godly” works. Not that giving any of these things to God is bad, but unless we come to Him with our spirits broken and our hearts contrite, then we really do not have anything of value to offer to Him. I love how one of the prayers that I have added to my daily prayer time says it:

O Lord and Master of my life, do not give to me the spirit of laziness, faintheartedness, lust for power, and idle talk.

But give to me Your servant the spirit of purity, humility, patience, and love.

O Lord and King, grant me to see my own faults and not to judge my brother, for blessed are You unto ages of ages. Amen.

O God, cleanse me, a sinner.

James 5:7-11 NASB
Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious produce of the soil, being patient about it, until it gets the early and late rains. You too be patient; strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Do not complain, brethren, against one another, so that you yourselves may not be judged; behold, the Judge is standing right at the door. As an example, brethren, of suffering and patience, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord. We count those blessed who endured. You have heard of the endurance of Job and have seen the outcome of the Lord’s dealings, that the Lord is full of compassion and is merciful.

Personal Challenge…
Patience…that thing that we always want in others but that we don’t want to cultivate in ourselves. At least not me anyway. As we approach the final stretch of Lent I am reminded that this is not only a season of developing discipline, but that it is also a season of learning and exercising patience. Easter is such a wonderful reminder of both what Christ has done for us, but also a foretaste of what He will be doing when He comes again. Why not practice Lent while leading up to the Easter celebration as a reminder of what we are looking forward to? Yes, we can make it legalistic or a rule to follow, but can we not do that with everything in our lives.? I have seen it as a period of anxiously waiting, waiting in the absence of the physical presence of Christ (in the Orthodox tradition the gospels are not even read during the daily readings of this season to remind us of what the world would be like without Christ), waiting for His glorious return, anticipating the joy that comes in the morning…the morning when we find that the tomb is empty.

Romans 5:20-21 NIV
The law was added so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, grace increased all the more, so that, just as sin reigned in death, so also grace might reign through righteousness to bring eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Encouraging Words…
To continue from yesterday…was Christ’s work all about the law which magnified our death or was it about our redemption through God’s grace? Praise be to God that Jesus came to redeem His creation for Himself, to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captive, to set the prisoner free and to comfort those who mourn (Isaiah 60:1-4). Once again it becomes clear that it is all about Him…not me.

Matthew 5:17 NIV
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.

Encouraging Words…
Hmmm…I have always read this verse as talking about the Law and how much I have missed the mark, but now that I am looking at this (and all of the Scripture) through different eyes I see an entirely different focus. Jesus came to redeem God’s creation, His creation, from that death that was introduced by Adam. The Law was established to better define the consequences of that death, the prophets rose up to point mankind to God and the promise of the The Christ who would come to defeat that death. Jesus’ fulfillment of the Law and the Prophets was His act of redeeming creation from the grip of death and setting it on a new path to fulfill God’s glory. Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!!!

Isaiah 12:2 NASB
“Behold, God is my salvation, I will trust and not be afraid; For the LORD GOD is my strength and song, And He has become my salvation.”

Encouraging Words…
God, and God alone, is my salvation. In Him I can find true peace, true joy, true LIFE. I will not find these in the books that I read or the doctrines that grab onto, even those these are not bad in and of themselves. But is is God who is my strength and song, my salvation.

Proverbs 10:22 NLT
The blessing of the LORD makes a person rich, and he adds no sorrow with it.

Encouraging Words…
It is amazing what can happen in our lives when we choose to shift our focus. If we look away from what the world defines as richness and look at what God means by it then verses like this make so much more sense. When God pours out His blessing upon us our richness is a heavenly one and there is no sorrow that come with it. To the contrary it comes with true joy and rejoicing.

Psalm 30:11-12 NLT
You have turned my mourning into joyful dancing. You have taken away my clothes of mourning and clothed me with joy, that I might sing praises to you and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give you thanks forever!

Encouraging Words…
It is so amazing to serve a Living God that turns our mourning into joyful dancing, that takes away our clothes of mourning and replaces them with clothes of joy. He is our source of life, love, and joy.

Hebrews 12:1-2 NASB
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Encouraging Words…
So, life is a race to be run…day in and day out. Isn’t it wonderful that we have Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who has gone before us and shown us how to run and win the race. Isn’t it also wonderful that we have the saints that have gone before us also available to show us how we as “works in progress” can run and win the race. We are not in this alone.