Day 337, 3rd August: Daniel, 1 John and Psalm
An Amazing Model
By Paul Howard, Soul Survivor:Called to Lead
Todays Readings Are:
Daniel 9:20-11:1
1 John 3:11-4:6
Psalm 137:1-9
Daniel opens up today with an amazing model of how to have a quiet time. Before we learn of the things God wants to do to Jerusalem and the ‘insight and understanding’ god wanted to give to Daniel, we see Daniel repenting for his sins, and the sins of his nation. What a great start, perhaps today we should stop right now and say sorry for our sins in the last 24hrs and cry out to the Lord for the wrong things we see around us in our country and our world. Then after this Daniel starts to hear from the Lord, we see the angel Gabriel make an appearance (that name ring any bells?!) to bring what God wants to say.
One of the first things, and in my opinion maybe the most profound, that Gabriel says is “As soon as you began to pray, an answer was given” That’s the next thing. First we repent, and then second we pray. In this case Daniel gets his answer on the spot, right then, for us sometimes we have to wait. We must remember God is faithful, and he does answer our prayers even if it’s not the way we expect. John repeats this in the NT by saying we ‘receive from him anything we ask’ God is waiting for us to go to him with our hopes, dreams and desires. We need to pray.
From here on in it gets confusing in Daniel, I don’t know about you but after I read it I was left wondering what the deal was with all the sevens? They are basically a biblical way of talking about a time period, people will argue as to literally 70 weeks (“seventy ‘sevens’”) or just a time to come. Daniel is prophesying about Jesus the ‘anointed one’ who will come and then be ‘Cut off’; killed. By being ‘cut off’ Jesus removed the need for sacrifice, he was the sacrifice and because of that we can freely be in a relationship with the father. So how do we do it? We repent, we pray and then we wait and then we listen.
In John’s letter we are shown the fruit of the above and the place in which it is all stems out of; Love. John challenges us to love with more than just our ‘words or tongue’ but to live a lifestyle of generous actions, be it time, money or possessions. In verse 19, John says that we know the truth by resting in his presence, like in Daniel the importance of waiting for God is stressed once again.
Today’s passages leave us with one to think about, John is talking about discerning the voice and spirit of God. John says we must acknowledge that evil is more powerful than we are, but we live in the knowledge that Jesus, the living God, is ‘seventy seven’ times more powerful than he. So today as you spend time reading God’s word, what is he trying to say to you?
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Today’s picture was taken by…
Pelumi at Prague Castle gardens. Thanks Pelumi!
If you’d like to take your own picture to potentially be featured on the blog, then get your Soul Survivor Bible in One Year, and take a picture of yourself – and your Bible – at some interesting or colourful location. Then email it to us at editor@soulsurvivor.com.
The pictures will need to be a pretty good resolution (we use 640px by 360 px so at least as big as that), landscape photos work best and if you include the day of the reading in the picture then make sure you send it to us a good few days before that reading, so we have time to include it in that day’s post! We’ll credit all photographers!
