THE SHEPHERD’S CORNER

Live differently
These weeks I thought we could look at one of my favorite Old Testament prophets – Daniel.
Daniel was a part of Israel when Babylon came, took most of the people captive, took them away from Jerusalem. Even though there had been warnings & prophecy about this captivity, the people of Israel didn’t listen. How many times God gives us warnings, and for whatever reason, we simply don’t listen also? God calls us to live differently – that means that life might not necessarily be easy or accepted, but there is a definite difference in the way the people of God should live their lives.
When we start the book of Daniel we are brought into prison where Daniel and his friends were given the king’s choice food and since they were royalty, they were being prepared to serve the king.
But there was one problem – the food wasn’t what their God had told them to eat. What could you do – you were a slave, held in captivity, told by the king in power what to eat – what would you have done? They struck a deal. Let us eat according to our God’s ways and see how we look compared to the others and if we look better, let us keep eating like our God tells us. Seems like a fair deal.
If you know the story of Daniel – you know they looked better and got to keep eating the way God instructed them.
They had every excuse and reason to go ahead and change – it was only food, but they took a stand – a stand to live differently and live according to God’s way and it paid off.
How many times do we miss the opportunity for the world to see that living for God pays off because we simply don’t take a stand in the first place?
How can you begin to live differently wherever you are at so people can see that follow God pays off?

Pastor Steve