TO GOD BE THE GLORY

[I apologize for failing to post a devotional thought last week. This week we continue in our yearlong journey through the book of Daniel]

Greetings church family!

Daniel 2:24-30 - Therefore Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had assigned to destroy the wise men of Babylon. He came and said to him, “Don’t destroy the wise men of Babylon! Bring me before the king, and I will give him the interpretation.” Then Arioch quickly brought Daniel before the king and said to him, “I have found a man among the Judean exiles who can let the king know the interpretation.” The king said in reply to Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, “Are you able to tell me the dream I had and its interpretation?” Daniel answered the king, “No wise man, medium, magician, or diviner is able to make known to the king the mystery he asked about. But there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries, and he has let King Nebuchadnezzar know what will happen in the last days. Your dream and the visions that came into your mind as you lay in bed were these: Your Majesty, while you were in your bed, thoughts came to your mind about what will happen in the future. The revealer of mysteries has let you know what will happen. As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but in order that the interpretation might be made known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.

Teaching is a very rewarding career, but also a very exhausting one. One of my least favorite parts of the job was catching students cheating. It didn’t matter how often I repeated to the class the cheating policy from the syllabus, or the loss of integrity one sustained when they cheated, there was always a student who tried to get away with it.

One year, I made note of a student cheating and the student they were cheating off of during a test. Later that day when I graded the tests, I noticed the student who was doing their work honestly answered a math problem using the wrong process and ending up with the wrong answer. Funny thing is, the cheating student copied the exact same incorrect process and incorrect answer. The next day when I confronted the cheating student, I showed her the specific aforementioned math problem - both from her test and from the other student’s test. I pointed out to her that it was way too much of a coincidence that “her” wrong process and answer looked exactly like the other student’s wrong process and answer. She was speechless. I finished by explaining to her that when you copy someone else’s work, you are intending to take credit for the work that you really didn’t do, but someone else did.

As we pick up where we left off in the book of Daniel, we find Daniel in front of King Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar inquires of Daniel if he has the ability to tell and interpret the king’s dream. Here is Daniel’s chance to make a name for himself. Here is Daniel’s chance to grab the spotlight, the attention, and the notoriety for himself. Here is Daniel’s chance to say, “Yes King Nebuchadnezzar, I can definitely tell you what your dream was and what it means.”  

But Daniel doesn’t do this. Instead he says, “As for me, this mystery has been revealed to me, not because I have more wisdom than anyone living, but in order that the interpretation might be made known to the king, and that you may understand the thoughts of your mind.” [Daniel 2:30] Why? It is because he knows it would be “cheating.” Daniel knows that the real ability lies with God, not within Himself. To declare otherwise would be taking the glory for himself when instead the glory belongs to God, and this is the result of embracing pride.

Church family, as we dwell on Daniel 2:24-30 this week, may we call upon God to make us aware of the self-centered pride we possess inside and to free us from its binding clutches. May we ask God to reveal those times in our life where we edit God of our narrative and cast ourselves as the hero. May we live and act from a place of humility, where we will find that every breath we breathe, every ability we display, and every success we achieve is sustained by God and is a fruit of His grace. May we move from the thought “I earned this” to the reality of “I was given this.”

Matthew 5:16 sums this up wonderfully. It reads, “In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Be blessed church family!

Pastor Chris