Daniel did two really smart things right away. He went and asked his friends to pray and
when he received his answer he praised the One who revealed it to him. In addition, did you notice the last two
lines of his prayer? He says, “(You) have
now made known to me what we asked of you,
for you have made known to us the
king's matter.” He acknowledged his
friends effort in prayer on his behalf and he didn’t take all the credit. When he appeared before the king he also did
two things that were important. He pleaded
for the lives of the Chaldeans, asking Arioch, who had been appointed to kill
them, not to carry out the order. He cared
about the Babylonian magicians and prophets even though they were part of the
leadership of the nation that had enslaved his people. Remember that Jeremiah said they were to seek
the prosperity of the nation among whom they were in exile? The second thing he did was to give credit to
Yahweh, the only one who could reveal the dreams and therefore the thoughts of
the king’s mind.
Jesus could have left the disciples behind quite
easily. They were going to abandon Him
soon and the knowledge of that could have embittered Him against them but
instead He prays that those who will soon forsake Him will be where He is going. He is praying for their eternal salvation in
spite of what He knows. That is true
love. We can love others as they love us
and as they stand with us but we are called to the kind of love that Jesus
displays here, seeking the best for those who betray us and loving them not
begrudgingly but wholeheartedly. That kind
of love is incredibly rare. He could have perfect, uninterrupted fellowship and
love with the Father without us but chose instead to widen the circle and bring
us in on His coattails. That He
continues to this day to forgive us and intercede on behalf of us rebels and
sinners is amazing grace and mercy. Lord,
teach us to love in this way.
How often do we let love of the world get in the way of
loving God and others? Love of the world
can take so many forms. It can keep us
working all the time and from friends and family. It can keep us seeking pleasure in one form
or another and keep us from friends and family as well. Love of the world can keep us from loving the
creator of the world. As long as we have
our hearts set on things “under the sun” as the writer of Ecclesiastes puts it,
they are set on the wrong things altogether.
CS Lewis certainly put it better than I can in a letter to a friend – “To
love you as I should, I must worship God as Creator. When I have learnt to love
God better than my earthly dearest, I shall love my earthly dearest better than
I do now. In so far as I learn to love my earthly dearest at the expense of God
and instead of God, I shall be moving towards the state in which I shall not
love my earthly dearest at all. When first things are put first, second things
are not suppressed but increased.” Let us never allow our love of the world to
get in the way of first things.
No comments:
Post a Comment