Discussion on Daniel's unwavering faith and understanding (Part 2)

To deliver them. Daniel proposed in his heart while he was young, and because he valued his relationship with God more than the privileges that Babylon offered, he received wisdom and spiritual understanding that helped guide him through challenges he could not have anticipated. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego stood before a furnace and said, our God can deliver us, but if not, we will still belong to him. And years later, Daniel continued praying as he did a four time, trusting a relationship with God that had been growing for decades, three experiences and three different pictures of deliverance. Sometimes the Lord delivers us by giving us wisdom before the danger arrives. Sometimes he delivers us by giving us faith, strongness, to trust him when we cannot control the outcome. And sometimes he delivers us through the strength, the peace and promises of our covenant relationship with Him. Regardless, all three teach and testify powerfully that there is no other God that can deliver. Nebuchadnezzar thought that his furnace had the final word, but it didn't. Daniel's enemies thought that the lions had the final word, but they didn't either. And Daniel7 ultimately points us towards the one who really does have the final word. In all things, Daniel sees one like the Son of Man, receiving dominion, glory, and a kingdom that will not pass away. In Daniel chapter seven, kings rise, kingdoms fall, cultures change, pressures change, but Jesus Christ remains constant. And maybe the greatest gift in all these stories isn't simply that God can rescue somebody from a furnace or shut a lion's mouth. It is that we can come to know him well enough to trust him with our lives. Regardless of what happens. We can recognize his voice, we can trust his will, we can stand within his covenants. And because of Jesus Christ, even death itself cannot ultimately prevent God from delivering his children. So this week, maybe ask yourself three questions. What am I doing to protect my connection with God? Is there something I need to place more fully in his hands and trust him with it? And finally, am I building the kind of ordinary covenant faithfulness today that will sustain me when an extraordinary challenge eventually comes? You don't have to wait for the.