Proverbs 10:16. The labor of the righteous leads to life
I was very encouraged when I read this verse recently as I have been learning new things and stepping out in areas that have made me uncomfortable. And I rejoiced to read this verse that our labors for the Lord will lead to life. Isn’t that what we want? Christian blogger, isn’t that why you write? Isn’t it about more than just getting your thoughts and opinions out there, but about affecting lives for the kingdom of God?
For this purpose we make plans and labor to learn technology and setup platforms and produce content. This is the board room – the place of planning and activity. Without the labor in the board room there will be nothing to present to the world.
But there in another labor that must occur….this one in the birthing room. All our blog posts, podcasts and videos become merely more cyber clutter without the touch of God upon them. We can work ourselves into exhaustion in the board room but if we neglect the birthing room of prayer all our labors will be ineffective and lifeless.
The board room is organized and professional looking. Everybody admires the work done there. But the birthing room is a place of groaning, sweat and tears that we often would prefer to avoid. But we must have both.
In the board room, we bring things forth. In the birthing room, God gives them life.
Ephesians 4:7 But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christ’s gift.
When 1 Corinthians 12 lists the gifts of the Spirit, this verse follows:
1 Corinthians 12:11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.
Each one in the body of Christ has giftings given by the Holy Spirit. All these gifts work in a beautiful unity of purpose to glorify Jesus and edify the church. But the gifts differ from person to person, and the operation of the same gift may vary greatly in different people.
We are called to unity, not uniformity. Here’s a quick definition of uniformity – freedom from variation or difference; sameness of action, effect, etc., under like conditions.
The only person we are to seek uniformity with is Jesus. When we try to preach like someone else, pray like someone else, or write like someone else, we lose the unique manifestation of the gifts that the Spirit wants to bring through us.
While we should all come together as the body of Christ in unity of purpose, there will be a variety of functions. Yet the function of each contributes to the unified purpose of all.
There is something that the Spirit of God has gifted you to do. There is grace on your life to do that thing. And the body of Christ needs you to do that thing in the way the Holy Spirit moves through you to do that thing.
It’s so helpful that Paul used the analogy of the body. We think about people that we might consider the mouth or the eye or the ear. Their use is so noticed and valued by all. They may be appreciated and praised by the body and their contribution honored while you might feel like the appendix. Tucked away in some hidden recess with seemingly no purpose. But just let that appendix get inflamed and the whole body is going to be affected.
Whatever part the Lord is leading you to play in his great mission in this earth (building the kingdom of God by winning souls, making disciples, and edifying the body of Christ), let your life be set on fire with a holy passion to do it. Inflamed by the Spirit of God, even a little appendix can have a big impact 😊
Daniel 4:2-3 I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me. How great are His signs, and how mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is from generation to generation.
The entirety of Daniel chapter 4 is a letter written by King Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful man in the world at that time, to “all people’s, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth” (v1)
He isn’t telling the story about the miracle God worked for Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. Now he has a testimony of what God has done for him and he basically was telling the whole world about it.
You may be amazed at the miracle God works for someone, and the testimony of God‘s power displayed in someone else’s life, but your human mind will often find a way to reason around it and discount it. But when it happens to you, you can have no argument against it.
Consider Paul. He heard the gospel that Stephen preached because he was standing there as Stephen was stoned. He heard the testimony of Steven and still continued to be a persecutor of the church. But when he had his own encounter with Jesus, it changed the course of his whole life.
This isn’t a second hand gospel and God doesn’t have step children. He wants each of us to have testimonies of our own (and we need to have them) of His power to save, heal, provide and deliver. And then He wants us to tell the world about it.
Daniel 3:27 And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.
There was nothing shocking about these three men being thrown into the fire. It was just another means of execution. But even the king couldn’t help but notice how they walked in that fire and who walked with them.
The fact that the fire had no effect upon them drew the attention of those around them. And while these three men were inspected and their condition considered, God received the glory.
Daniel 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God!
When we go through life’s trials the same way the world does, it draws no attention and brings God no glory.
Some people bear the marks of the fire through the rest of their lives. They spend much time describing its heat and displaying their scars. And it is the fire that gets the glory.
Followers of Jesus are called to a different way. Even in our trials and suffering we are to set our mind on things above (Colossians 3:2)
The fire may be able to touch our outer man at times, but it can only touch our inner man to the extent we yield ourselves to it.
Consider how these three men conducted themselves and how this might apply to us and the fires we walk through:
Daniel 3:25 “Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
They were not bound up and hindered and stifled in life because of the fire. They were not paralyzed or immobilized because of the fire. They weren’t damaged by the fire. They didn’t come out so traumatized that they were unable to even toast marshmallows again. And it was perceptible to all who looked on that they were not alone. The presence of Jesus in the fire with them was unmistakable.
It is never easy to go through a fiery trial, but if your life finds you in a particular furnace at the moment, don’t let it be wasted. Walk through that fire in such a way that when you come out on the other side, people will marvel at the gracious God who brought you through.
This has been a season of new things for me, as it probably has been for many of you. I’ve added a couple of new pages to my blog because I’ve started doing a couple of new things.
Namely, a podcast and YouTube channel. I’m still learning and deciding how to best utilize these platforms, but rather than waiting to figure it all out, I just started! 😊
Sooooo…..I just thought I would make that announcement for anyone who may be interested.
Daniel 3:28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God!
As background to this verse, King Nebuchadnezzar had erected a gold statue of himself that was about 90 feet tall and commanded his subjects to bow down to it and worship it…. or else.
Daniel 3:6 “and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, as worshippers of God, could do no such thing and it didn’t take long for news of this to get back to the king. In his fury he commanded the furnace be heated seven times hotter than normal and the three men were thrown in. God miraculously delivered them and our opening verse is King Nebuchadnezzar’s response to that deliverance. He called them servants of God who yielded their bodies.
Well, who wouldn’t yield their body for such an amazing miracle?? But remember, when these three refused to bow, they knew what the penalty was and although they believed God could deliver them from it, they did not know if He would. And still they yielded their bodies to God, refusing to bow.
Many of us may hope we would respond the same way. But if you haven’t yielded your bank account, you won’t yield your body. If you haven’t yielded your time (allowing the Lord to prune your life of time wasting activities), you won’t yield your body. If you can’t ever push back the plate, then you probably won’t yield your body.
How can we honestly say we would make the greatest sacrifice when we won’t make the small ones.
Wave your white flag. Surrender to the Lord. Yield your body.
Daniel 1:20 And in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers who were in all his realm.
A consecrated life increases your ability to receive what God desires to give and multiplies your effectiveness in the kingdom.
Not only were Daniel and his friends superior to the other captives who had received the same training as them, they were superior to the wisemen of Babylon who had spent their lives being immersed in and studying Babylonian history, literature, wisdom, etc.
Daniel and his friends had three years of training in these things. And in three years their level of wisdom and understanding was not equal to the Babylonian wise men, but was 10 times greater. The difference is consecration. It doesn’t just make you a little better. It brings an anointing that results in multiples of exceeding greatness of God through your life.
If I consider how this practically plays out in my life, I think about the times that I set the word of God before me yet within arm’s reach is a cell phone, and YouTube, and Facebook. I haven’t really consecrated that time for the Lord because as soon as that notification sound goes off, I will reach for the phone. If it were only an occasional thing perhaps I could excuse it. But it has become a habitual way of life for me. So it isn’t merely that these certain times aren’t consecrated — the life isn’t consecrated. How can this possibly continue to be acceptable?? There are things He wants to speak to me and impart into my life, but my refusal to crucify a flesh that cries to be entertained has kept me among the multitudes of the unknown and ineffective instead of ascending with the few who push the plate away.
Regarding Daniel and his friends, God moved mightily in them during this season of preparation, but things may have turned out very differently for them if they also had indulged in the king’s delicacies. Their decision to live in such a way as to honor God rather than satisfy themselves swung open the door wide for the power of God to work in their lives.
Daniel 1:8 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
We are told that Daniel continued in his position in Babylon for approximately 60 years, until the first year of Cyrus which means he was probably a teenager at the beginning of the book of Daniel. Yet even at so early an age, his desire to obey and please God overruled even his desire for a life of ease in Babylon.
This food that the captives were being provided would have been quality food, for it came from the king’s own table. But it almost certainly would have been offered to pagan deities and may have been animals considered unclean to an Israelite. It would have been so easy to just go along with the other captives and eat what was set before him. There were so many justifications, not the least of which was the fact that he was now basically a prisoner in a foreign land with no ability to direct the course of his own life any longer. What choice did he have?
But he wanted to live a life that was pure and holy before God, even if that meant depriving himself of the flesh pleasing delicacies that others enjoyed. But wouldn’t he lack? Wouldn’t his health suffer by so restrictive a diet? Did it really even require all that?
Don’t we ask similar questions of ourselves when the Holy Spirit begins touching on a part of our lives that is defiling us?
Other Christians are doing it. Why can’t I?
It isn’t a sinful thing, so what’s it hurting?
Doesn’t it seem a bit fanatical to lay this thing aside?
I have found that the Holy Spirit will have me lay something aside mainly for this one reason – it hinders intimacy with Jesus. Friend, if you have cried out to the Lord in your desire to draw near to Him, one inevitable outcome of such prayers is that you will become aware of things in your life that you will need to let go of to allow more room for Him.
Daniel didn’t know when he was making decisions to live in purity as a teenager that the Lord would elevate and prosper him in the kingdom the way He did. That wasn’t Daniel’s goal. He just wanted to live pure before God.
Oh that we would have that same heart and desire to cast away everything that defiles our life. We might actually see God do amazing things in our lives if our greatest desire was to be pleasing to Him.
There were two groups of priests in the temple – those whose compromised lives made them fit only to minister to the people and the faithful Zadok priests who ministered to the Lord. This is a longish passage but it describes the distinction between the two groups.
Ezekiel 44:10-16 And the Levites who went far from Me, when Israel went astray, who strayed away from Me after their idols, they shall bear their iniquity. Yet they shall be ministers in My sanctuary, as gatekeepers of the house and ministers of the house; they shall slay the burnt offering and the sacrifice for the people, and they shall stand before them to minister to them. Because they ministered to them before their idols and caused the house of Israel to fall into iniquity, therefore I have raised My hand in an oath against them,” says the Lord GOD, “that they shall bear their iniquity. And they shall not come near Me to minister to Me as priest, nor come near any of My holy things, nor into the Most Holy Place; but they shall bear their shame and their abominations which they have committed. Nevertheless I will make them keep charge of the temple, for all its work, and for all that has to be done in it. But the priests, the Levites, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the children of Israel went astray from Me, they shall come near Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer to Me the fat and the blood,” says the Lord GOD. They shall enter My sanctuary, and they shall come near My table to minister to Me, and they shall keep My charge.
You would think that these Zadok priests would have lives so very prosperous and blessed because of their faithfulness to God. Perhaps the very windows of heaven would be open over their lives, pouring out blessings and wealth they couldn’t contain. Blessings surely must be chasing them down and overtaking them. Shockingly, this was not the case.
Ezekiel 44:28 It shall be, in regard to their inheritance, that I am their inheritance. You shall give them no possession in Israel, for I am their possession.
They had no land of their own, nothing they could say was theirs …except for God. He was their portion.
The Lord provided their food from what was His:
Ezekiel 44:29-30 They shall eat the grain offering, the sin offering, and the trespass offering; every dedicated thing in Israel shall be theirs. The best of all firstfruits of any kind, and every sacrifice of any kind from all your sacrifices, shall be the priest’s; also you shall give to the priest the first of your ground meal, to cause a blessing to rest on your house.
The Lord provided their housing from what was His:
Ezekiel 45:1 Moreover, when you divide the land by lot into inheritance, you shall set apart a district for the LORD, a holy section of the land; its length shall be twenty-five thousand cubits, and the width ten thousand.
Ezekiel 45:4 It shall be holy throughout its territory all around. It shall be a holy section of the land, belonging to the priests, the ministers of the sanctuary, who come near to minister to the LORD; it shall be a place for their houses and a holy place for the sanctuary.
They ate what was holy. They lived in a holy place. The presence of God and ministry to Him was the center of everything- literally.
I wonder if others thought it was a restrictive life, feeling sorry for these Zadok priests who did not have a possession of their own. Meanwhile, these priests lived near the very presence of God and spent their days serving Him, feeling sorry for those who did not have Him as their possession.
He is my Delight 