Daniel’s Devotion (Part 7)

Hello Friends!

Welcome Back! Let’s continue our study of “Daniel’s Devotion” from God’s Word…

Daniel’s Devotion (Part 7)

In the ninth chapter of Daniel's prophecy – chronologically following chapter 6 – this ancient Jewish prophet is approximately 85 years old and had just come under the rule of the Medo-Persian Empire after seventy years under the Babylonians. This information helps us to discern and learn that Bible prophecy is the determining factor in where we are on God's "prophetic time-clock" of human history!

Here we find Daniel had “understood by the books” from his own devotional time of reading God's Word:

in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that He would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem – Daniel 9:2

Daniel was reading from the book of Jeremiah  Jeremiah 29:10 and 25:11, where the prophet Jeremiah – almost one hundred years before the fact – revealed that the Jews would be out of the land of Israel for a seventy year period of time so that the " whole land” of Israel could get it's " seventy years” of Sabbath rest:

And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylon seventy years – Jeremiah 25:11

For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform My good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place – Jeremiah 29:10

By reading God's Word Daniel could determine where he was in God's time-table of history. We see here in chapter 9 that once Daniel realizes where he was in God's "prophetic time" he confessed his sins, the sins of his people and seeks the Lord's direction for his life. In fact, there is not one single negative word said about Daniel any place in the entire Bible! There is, however, a "commendation" from the heavenlies for Daniel:

At the beginning of your supplications the command went out, and I have come to tell you, for you are greatly beloved; therefore consider the matter, and understand the vision – Daniel 9:23

God gives Daniel a glimpse into the future with the prophecy of the "seventy weeks” of Daniel:

Seventy weeks are determined for your people and for your holy city, to finish the transgression, to make an end of sins, to make reconciliation for iniquity, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to seal up vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy. Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined – Daniel 9:24

God has a "special plan" – the “seventy weeks” (490 years). God has a "special place" – the Holy City of Jerusalem. And God has a "special people" – the Jewish people!

We see here that the Lord also set the exact time when the Messiah would appear incarnate on the earth:

Know therefore and understand, that from the going forth of the command to restore and build Jerusalem until Messiah the Prince, there shall be seven weeks and sixty-two weeks; the street shall be built again, and the wall, even in troublesome times. And after the sixty-two weeks Messiah shall be cut off, but not for Himself; and the people of the prince who is to come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary. The end of it shall be with a flood, and till the end of the war desolations are determined – Daniel 9:25-26

The time for the appearance of the Messiah would be after 69 of the "70 Weeks" – 483 of the 490 years of Daniel's prophecy. This timing would be from when King Artaxerxes – of Nehemiah's day – who gave the command to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the walls and streets of the city in April 445 BC. This timing would extend until the crucifixion of Jesus in April of 30 AD. This passage actually lays out for us when the Messiah would arrive in Jerusalem! In fact, Daniel even added information about the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD.

This prophecy pin-pointed the exact time that Jesus Christ the Messiah would be crucified – "cut off " – and that it had to happen before the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD, which was completed by the Roman army. These two verses set the time for the appearance of the Messiah’s first advent on earth. Jesus Christ fulfilled every prophetic detail, proving He was the Messiah and that He arrived “right on time” according to Bible prophecy.

Daniel then describes to the student of Bible prophecy the period of time known as the "The Great Tribulation" with more specifics surrounding the Lord's return:

Then he shall confirm a covenant with many for one week; but in the middle of the week he shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, even until the consummation, which is determined, is poured out on the desolate – Daniel 9:27

There are three elements in this passage that must fit within the “seven years” and will actually come to fulfillment within the first three and one half years of The Great Tribulation judgment on the earth leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ – back to the Earth. The first element will be the appearance of a One-world ruler known by twenty-seven different names during his short reign in the Tribulation period. Here are a few of these names:

The "little horn" – Daniel 7:8

The ”prince who is to come" – Daniel 9:26

The "willful king" – Daniel 11:36

The "false Christ" – Matthew 24:24

The "Beast out of the sea" – Revelation 13:1

The "man of sin,” the "son of perdition" and the "wicked one" – 2 Thessalonians 2

But the most familiar name of this man is that which the Apostle John refers to him… The “Antichrist” – 1 John 2:18 

This "world dictator” will appear on the Earth as a result of the revival of the old Roman Empire and will come to power and "confirm a covenant" between the Jews and their Gentile neighbors – the "many" noted by Daniel. Notice that the Antichrist will not "sign" a peace treaty but will "confirm" one already on the negotiation table – but are not currently “working.” Today there are three such treaties that Israel has signed and are waiting to be "confirmed" – forced to work. In fact it is the "confirmation" of this treaty that starts the clock ticking on the seven year Tribulation period.

The last element in the beginning of the Tribulation is the Jewish Temple. The “Antichrist” will perform the "abomination of desolation" in this Temple as he walks into the "Holy of Holies" and claims himself to be God as foretold by the Apostle Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2. By the way, all preparations have been made for the building of the Tribulation Temple that the Antichrist will desecrate during the “seven years” of judgment. That Temple is ready to be built – any day soon!

Remember: Jesus Christ will then build His Kingdom Temple after His return to earth where He will rule and reign for 1000 Years as King of kings and Lord of lords!

All the prophecies of Daniel referring to the Lord's first coming and what would happen were fulfilled in every detail. And fulfilled prophecy sets the stage for yet future Bible prophecy to be fulfilled. Keep watch on the "special people" of God – the Jewish people and  the "special place" of God – Jerusalem, to discern where God is on His prophetic time clock…

Thank you for reading! Don’t miss next week’s continued investigation of Daniel’s Devotion…

May the Lord Jesus Christ continue to bless you with His perfect love, mercy and grace!

Keep looking up and sharing the Gospel while there is still time… Hallelujah and Maranatha – come quickly Lord Jesus!

Blessings!

Shane <><

For I know the plans I have for you

Jeremiah 29:11 – For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

I have taken today’s devotion from an article I read online this week.  It hit home for me because I know that I have taken Jeremiah 29:11 out of context before.  This comes from: http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/stop-taking-jeremiah-2911-out-context#hiH35JKC0YQXToPQ.99

It’s written on graduation cards, quoted to encourage a person who can’t seem to find God’s well and doled out like a doctor explaining a prescription: Take Jeremiah 29:11 a few times, with a full glass of water, and call me in the morning. I think you’ll feel better.
“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future’” Jeremiah 29:11 tells us—possibly one of our most beloved, yet most misunderstood, verses in the entire Bible.
Sure, it might make a person feel better, but this verse as we often prescribe it is being taken completely out of context. It doesn’t mean what people think it means. It’s time to back up and see what the author of Jeremiah is actually saying.
When it comes to reading the Bible, we can sometimes be so familiar with the words on the page that we read them, but we don’t really understand them. We see the words and hear the words, but we don’t make any sense out of them. Familiarity can breed laziness, and so many of our misunderstandings about the scriptures happen because we are too familiar with the passage to look it with fresh eyes. If we would come to the Word of God with fresh eyes more often, we would realize that some of our most common interpretations of Scripture passed down to us don’t make much sense when viewed within the context of the passage.
Like any author worth his salt, the writer in Jeremiah begins by stating the subject of the passage: “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon ... “ (Jeremiah 29:4).
This verse, quoted to countless individuals who are struggling with vocation or discerning God’s will, is not written to individuals at all. This passage is written to a whole group of people—an entire nation. For all the grammarians out there, the “you” in Jeremiah 29:11 isn’t singular, it’s plural. And you don’t have to be a Hebrew scholar to realize that “one” versus “many” is a big difference.
And the verse just before it is perhaps even scarier. For in Jeremiah 29:10, God lays down the specifics on this promise: that He will fulfill it “after seventy years are completed for Babylon.” In other words, yes, God says, I will redeem you—after 70 years in exile. This is certainly a far cry from our expectation of this verse in what God’s plans to prosper us really mean. He did have a future and a hope for them—but it would look far different than the Israelites ever expected.
So what? Some of you may be thinking. Even when the verse is taken out of context, it still offers value, right? God does know the plans of individual people, so it’s just as well to keep prescribing Jeremiah 29 for those seeking God’s plan for their life, right? Well, yes and no.
We need to let the Bible speak to us, not allow our own personal bent to speak into the Scriptures. If Jeremiah 29 is speaking to the nation of Israel, and not just one person, then we should start with the truth in the Scriptures. Context matters—God speaks at a particular moment in time, to a particular people group, for a reason.
What this means is that God has plans for a whole group of people, namely the nation of Israel. And if we read on in the Scriptures we find that this promise was fulfilled: those in exile returned, and the nation of Israel was restored for a time. God made a promise through the prophets, and that promise came true.
But that’s not the end of the story, either. There is something to the out-of-context prescriptions that so many make using this verse. God is a God of redemption, after all, and He wants to redeem people and put them on a path of wholeness, just as He wanted the nation of Israel to be redeemed and whole again.
As John Calvin says about this passage, the prophet is speaking not just of historical redemption, for that period in time, but also of “future redemption.” For the Israelites, God listened to their prayers when they sought Him with all their heart, and in His time, He brought them out of exile.
But how does any of this apply to us today? Can we still take heart in such a beautiful promise—even though it was spoken to people long ago, people in a far different situation than ours?
First and foremost, we are all in this together. This verse does not apply to isolated individuals or to a broad community. It applies to both, together, functioning as one. The image painted here is one of individuals in community, like the Body of Christ which Paul talks about. Here are a bunch of people, worshiping God together, hoping for a future redemption.
The theologians Stanley Grenz and John Franke explain in their book Beyond Foundationalism just how a community “turns the gaze of its members toward the future.” The future in Jeremiah is one that is bright—one that everyone in the community through prayer and worship seeks as their collective future hope. Many of us want to desperately know the plan that God has for each one of us as individuals, but let the prophet Jeremiah remind us that it’s not all about us, and it might not look like what we think.
Even more important than our decision about which college to attend, which city to move to or what job offer to take is the future hope of the Kingdom of God foretold by the prophets and fulfilled in the reign of our now and coming King. In this way, the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 is bigger than any one of us—and far better.

Thurs Devo - Is Confession Enough?

Numbers 5:5-7            ⁵ The Lord said to Moses, ⁶ “Say to the Israelites: ‘Any man or woman who wrongs another in any way and so is unfaithful to the Lord is guilty ⁷ and must confess the sin they have committed. They must make full restitution for the wrong they have done, add a fifth of the value to it and give it all to the person they have wronged.

Any sin is a sin against God. If I wrong someone or hurt them or fail to do something I know to do, I don’t just sin against another person, but against my Creator and Heavenly Father.

I need to recognize and then confess my sin to God and to those affected. In the Old Testament, the Israelites were also required to make restitution plus 20%! This was in addition to taking the time and money to offer a sin and guilt offering!

Because Jesus has paid our penalty for our sin already and was the sacrifice for all sin, we no longer are required to make sin and guilt offerings. However, is confession enough?

We don’t earn forgiveness by making restitution, but if we are truly sorry for our sin, we will want to make things right. If we truly desire to follow God and His commands, we won’t just be sorry about the consequences of sin. Sorry about the consequences is just having a selfish pity party. Truly sorry for being unfaithful to God means we want Him to help us restore whatever was damaged for His glory and the benefit of all involved. Our actions, behavior and generosity will reflect our true heart.

Is there someone you and I have wronged or hurt?

Have we confessed it and to whom?

(At times in the past, I have confessed my sin to God for hurting someone else, but I should have also confessed it to the other person.)

Then, how can we show our confession is not just empty words?

Will we sincerely love God and others we have hurt by going above and beyond (with God’s help) to make restitution when possible?

Alice

You Are Enough

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”

Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Matthew 22:26-40

There was a time in my life where I did not feel worthy of God’s love.  “I am not good enough,” I would tell myself.  As such, I felt unworthy of the love I had been given from others as well.  Then when I was born again, it felt like a flood of Godly love overwhelmed me.  It was so abundant that I had to share.  I wanted to share.  Over ten years later, that feeling has never left me.  The reason has become obvious to me lately.  You can love others as much as you have love for yourself.  This is not a self-absorbed type love.  This is a love that God has for you, and through it, you realize how valued you are to Him.  This sense of self-worth gives you a greater purpose.  A greater sense of how beautiful you are from the inside out.

Our love is as abundant as the love we have for God.  Jesus’ lesson on the greatest commandment is one of my favorites.  Most people think of it as the importance of having love for God and others.  While that is fundamentally true, it is a narrow view.  A God-centered perspective will look at love not just of others.  It begins with self.  It is no surprise that most destructive and unhealthy relationships start with a lack of love for self.  Guilt and shame through sin are instruments of the Devil that restrict one’s love for self.  But God’s grace is so transformative that it frees us to be better stewards to others because it allows for us to first forgive ourselves!  It is then that we see ourselves as God sees us; a beautiful creation that was made for His purpose.

You are a child of God.  You are beautiful, wonderfully made, and worthy.  How could you truly love God or your neighbor without realizing the incredible person that God made you?  We are driven by the world to believe that unless we buy, physically change, or become someone else, we are worthless.  But God says, “I will provide all you need.  I made you just the way you are, and I love you as is.”  You may tell yourself that you are not the person you want to be, but God wants you to know you are a special work in progress.  While you push to grow in your relationship with Christ, remember you are worthy of God’s love.  My brothers and sisters in Christ, you are quite simply enough.  Amen.

Tues Devo: The opportunity

Galatians 5:7-14 “You were running well; who hindered you from obeying the truth? This persuasion did not come from Him who calls you. A little leaven leavens the whole lump of dough. I have confidence in you in the Lord that you will adopt no other view; but the one who is disturbing you will bear his judgment, whoever he is. But I, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then the stumbling block of the cross has been abolished. I wish that those who are troubling you would even mutilate themselves. For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” (NASB)

Hello,

I was thinking the other day about opportunity. When we hear that word we tend to think of choice. But it is more than choice, choice is simply the gateway to opportunity. We must make a choice first, and then the resulting possibilities are where the opportunities exist.

If opportunity was just about the existence of choice, then the selection made during that process would not be relevant. But choice is everywhere – and the opportunity is about what has the possibility of happening based on our selection made in the moment of choice. We have incredible freedom in Christ – many choices lie in front of us. But when we make some choices, it gives the opportunity (greater possibility) for sin and the old nature to rise up. However, we also have the choice to give opportunity for the furtherance of the Gospel and God’s love by choosing to serve. Will we always see results from service out of love? Nope, but it is through that choice that the opportunity then is presented!

Have a blessed day, and make good choices so we have more opportunities to see God’s love spread.

Will Hill