September 04, 2022
Daily Devotion:
"Unflinching Faith… "
Daniel 6:5
New International Version
5 Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”
If someone wanted to dig up dirt on you, how difficult would it be? To his eternal credit, Daniel was squeaky clean. No matter how hard they tried, Daniel's Enemies could turn up nothing whatsoever to impugn his character. No dirt or scandal. Not even rumors of whiffs of traces! In fact, the only reputation he had was for being wholeheartedly loyal to his God and resolutely obedient to the exacting laws of the Law. So if Daniel had any Achilles' heel, his enemies concluded, it was his unflinching faith. And it was there that they laid their trap. Because they knew Daniel would not obey any law that ran afoul of God's law, all they needed was the king's decree punishing anyone praying to any god or other man. No sooner had Daniel courageously prayed in defiance of the king's decree than he found himself in that legendary lions' den. That Daniel's enemies had to resort to exploiting his faith tells us about more than Daniel's personal integrity. If total dedication to God's law produces such an impeccable character, what must that say about the law itself, if not that it is uniquely and perfectly designed to be character-forming? And if that is the case, then the opposite must be equally true. Whenever a person's moral character can easily be impugned, you can rest assured that in some serious way God's law has been ignored. This brings us full circle to the opening question. If it wouldn't be all that difficult for someone to dig up dirt on you and me, maybe it is time we think again about just how committed we are to God's law.
The arresting question is: What would I find more troublesome about my life, the dirt someone could turn up or having a faith commitment so weak that no enemy would think to exploit it?
