Friday, June 24, 2011

June 24, 2011 … Integrity Triumphs Over Deception

Passage of the Day: Daniel 6: 6 – 9 6 So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said: “O King Darius, live forever! 7 The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 Now, O king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” 9 So King Darius put the decree in writing.

My Journal for Today: In the devotional book, Strength for Today, … the book that I have used to drive these daily journal entries, John MacArthur, on this date, quotes a prayer of King David in Psalm 5: 8 – 12 [linked here for your study], where David prayed that those who would plot to deceive him would be punished by God. Actually, a prayer like that one could have been Daniel’s prayer as well as we read what the jackals in King Darius’ court plotted against Daniel. And Darius, like Nebuchadnezzar years before him, had fallen prey to the ego-driven deceit of the King’s men, which set in motion another serious test of Daniel’s faith and spiritual integrity.

And as we read the story unfold in the rest of Daniel 6 (also, as I have read on ahead, you can follow my subsequent devotionals), God would protect Daniel again; and the deceitful men of the King’s court would lose their lives for plotting against God’s man, Daniel. From all of this, the lesson could not be clearer.

Faithful integrity which honors the one, true God, especially when tested, will be blessed by God’s will and way. And as it says in my wife’s favorite Bible verse, Prov. 3: 5 -6 (another passage I hope you’ve memorized by now), trusting God wholeheartedly finds the believer walking a straight, if narrow and harrowing, path in God’s direction. And we also know from one of my other memorized passages, 1st Cor. 10: 13, God’s promise is that He will always make a way for His faithful warriors to follow.

That was the way for Daniel; and that is the way it should be for all of us to follow the Lord.

My Prayer Today: Help me, Lord, to see Your path clearly … and then, to follow it faithfully. Amen

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