Nebuchadnezzar’s plan seemed sound. Bring some of the best of Israel and educate
them according to the Babylonian way and treat them like sons of the king for
three years and use them as models for all the other Israelites to see that
accommodating themselves to this way of life actually is superior to their
culture. Unfortunately for the king, he
chose four men who were convinced that their way and their God was superior and
weren’t willing to compromise their beliefs.
Daniel proposed a test to the man over them, a controlled experiment,
don’t give us what you give the others, give us only vegetables to eat and
water to drink and see for yourself whether we fare better than the other group
who eat from the king’s table and drink his wine. The results convinced the steward to allow
them to continue. While they were
educated by the best that Babylon had to offer, we are told that the Lord gave
them wisdom and understanding that surpassed the rest as well. Why are we so intimidated by the wisdom and
understanding of the world and so afraid to trust Him in these things?
Jesus prays for His own glorification, that He might be
glorified with the same glory He had before the world existed. Why does He pray
that? Is Jesus seeking to vindicate
Himself? No, He tells us why He prays
this, for the same reason Daniel and the others chose to abstain from what was
offered and to trust the Lord for all wisdom and understanding, “glorify your
Son that the Son may glorify you.”
Daniel wasn’t seeking to make himself known, he trusted the Lord always
in all things and Jesus’ motive is that in His own glorification He will make
the Father’s glory known. The cross, the
love of God in sending His only Son into the world to die for the sins of the
world, glorified both the Father and the Son.
The cross makes possible the further glorification of the Father in the
raising of that Son to life again. We
have to die to self and die to the world in order to truly glorify Him. He is either our God or simply another god in
our lives. Which do you think He should
be?
Just as Jesus prayed for the completion of the joy of His
disciples, so now John says that his joy will be complete in the faith of those
to whom he writes. The fellowship of
believers is intended to be a joyful thing and too often we worry about all the
peripheral things and allow those to divide us and to steal our joy. We find differences in worship style, whether
musical or liturgy, and we focus our attention on those things rather than our
common faith and fellowship with the Father through the Son. We come to worship and if something isn’t to
our taste or liking we break fellowship and we allow that to keep us from
worshipping Him. All those things are
sin and works of darkness. Let us ask
Him to restore our joy in fellowship with God and one another and never again
allow non-essentials to steal it. Let
Him be God and all else be secondary.
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