Yesterday the leader of our prayer team raised an issue that came to me with a lot of conviction because I know I am guilty. He said, in his word, that he felt like the fire which we started off with as a team had gone cold. The love and commitment we had had gone. He was careful to say that he stood to be rebuked and corrected if he was wrong. I was mute on this words for a whole day. How could I rebuke or correct? Where were the words to do that? I was guilty. I have not been so committed. I have let other things occupy much of my time with God. Every time there is a reason not to attend prayer meetings I grasp on to that and just think everyone will understand. My heart was convicted, it was time to seek God's mercy and ask Him not to allow me to die spiritually.
Daniel was a man who would not let the good things of Babylon sway his commitment and love for God. He was a man in captivity living and serving in the King's palace teaching the Chaldeans language and literature. See, the king commanded that they be fed with his delicacies. (Daniel 1:3-7). The four young men refused because they were without blemish. Is it the same with us today? On the one hand yes because we are in a strange land. This world is not our home. We are here as captives waiting for our Lord to come and take us home. Peter makes this clear in 1 Peter 2:11. Just like Daniel, we are in a foreign land, we know that one time we will go home. The difference is, are we becoming more of the world or do we still remember that this is not where we belong? Daniel purposed that he would not defile himself. Now this is where the difference is. Once we are offered the best of the land, we rush and defile ourselves and forget our commitment to the things of God. We dilute and defile our love for Him.
Daniel is still the same man who fasted 21 days because of the captivity they were in. He fasted for his people repenting for their sins and his that had led them into captivity (Dan 9 & 10). He did not embrace the situation. He knew he was in a position to seek God and God sent the angel Gabriel. Why do we grow lax, why do we grow cold.
It is time to make amends. It is time to return to our first love (God). We need to seek Him more than ever before. Let us not get comfortable in this world. In a short while, we will have to go. Let us remember the word of Isaiah 24. There is a home for us who will have not just run but finished the race. It is a home in glory. That home is not in this world. Seek God and He will be found. Fail to seek Him and you will not find Him.
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