Living For God In Everyday Life

Eddie Corne

January 22, 2012

Living for God in Everyday Life.

Text: Daniel 6:16

16 Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!”

Intro: Daniel is one of the most courageous and faithful men in the entire Bible. But not for the reasons we usually think.

For example, when telling the story of Daniel and the lions’ den, most people usually focus on Daniel’s courage in the lions’ den itself. But what’s curiously missing from the whole story is any description of Daniel’s experience in it. Not one word.

One hundred and fifty-three verses on his life before the lions’ den. Aside from when he tells the king that God had shut the mouths of the lions, zero describing his time in it.

And the reason is because Daniel’s courage and faith in the lions’ den isn’t the point. After all, shutting the mouths of the lions was God’s thing. Once Daniel gets thrown in the lions’ den, what is he really going to do?

I’ll tell you what he was going to do. It was what he has always done that is being faithful regardless of situation. Even if deliverance did not come, Daniel was going to faithfully serve God.

We have all heard it said that we can’t choose our circumstance but we can choose what we are going to do in the midst of them. Have you ever said or maybe heard someone else say, “Lord, if you get me out of this jam I promise you I will serve you.” We all know that is not how it works.

We must do as Daniel did and make consistent daily choices to serve God regardless of the ups and downs. Life isn’t always like the movies, exciting and adventurous, a lot of times it is simply mundane and routine. And it is during these times when how we choose to live matters.

Let us look at Daniel and glean a perspective on how to live life day by day.

1. Daniel had made a decision to live righteous.

Daniel1:4 youths without blemish, of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding learning, and competent to stand in the king’s palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans.

Daniel wasn’t living in the best of conditions. He after all was in captivity. Many today fear what our schools are teaching our kids that somehow this will influence them to not live for God.

The Kings School - All kinds of literature and learning (1:17–20). Archeology has revealed what the four young Jews must have studied. This would include spoken Chaldean; cuneiform writing in Chaldean and Akkadian; spoken and written Aramaic; and a great mass of Sumerian religious, magical, astrological, and scientific writings. When commitment to God is strong, a pagan education in a pagan society need not corrupt us.

Daniel 1:8 But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank.

I am telling you that when you have had an encounter with God, your heart changes and it makes no difference of your environment or your schooling. Daniel had an encounter with God and he made a decision that he was going to serve God regardless of the conditions. Daniel had made a decision to live righteous.

2. Daniel had a right perspective of God.

Daniel 2:12 Because of this the king was angry and very furious, and commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be destroyed. 13 So the decree went out, and the wise men were about to be killed; and they sought Daniel and his companions, to kill them. 14 Then Daniel replied with prudence and discretion to Arioch, the captain of the king’s guard, who had gone out to kill the wise men of Babylon. 15 He declared to Arioch, the king’s captain, “Why is the decree of the king so urgent?” Then Arioch made the matter known to Daniel. 16 And Daniel went in and requested the king to appoint him a time, that he might show the interpretation to the king.

The king had established a decree to kill all the wise men in Babylon because they couldn’t interpret his dream without knowing the dream. Daniel hadn’t even at this point been given the opportunity to interpret the dream, but was going to be killed regardless.

So what did Daniel do he sought God for direction.

Daniel 2: 17 Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, 18 and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon.