You hear about it every day: Someone’s
come up with a new diet, and—we’re serious this time, no, really we mean it—it’s
a miracle! Eat no bread or starches, only meat. Only drink prune juice. Only
eat things that are naturally grown.
If you’ve read the Scripture reading
from above, my segue was painfully obvious. King Nebuchadnezzar finally
captured Jerusalem as the final jewel in his crown, and he set about making
changes. He took the best of the best, the crème de la crème, and claimed them
for his own court. No one who wasn’t handsome, bright, educated, and
quick-thinking need apply. Of course, these young men didn’t apply for this
job. They were forced into it at the point of a sword.
But even in these darkest of days,
the Lord is working behind the scenes to accomplish his purposes. His choice
servants, at least the ones who prominently enter this story, are four young
godly men: Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. You already see his
sovereignty at work a few verses into the book: He gave his servants favor in
the eyes of the chief official in charge of them. In other words, the Lord—working
in perfect sync with human will—made the official more positively disposed
towards them.
Now we come to the diet part. What
exactly was Daniel and co.’s problem with the food and wine? Does God expect all of us to
become vegetarians? Of course not. Our Savior had no problem eating meat while
on earth. But the problem mainly was the food itself. I promise you, the restaurants
in Babylon didn’t have a kosher section. What exactly was the problem with the
wine isn’t as clear, but apparently Daniel and co. had an issue with that as
well.
So he made a proposal to their
guard: Give us vegetables and water for ten days, and let the other boys eat
the rich food and wine from the king’s table, and we’ll see which group is
better.
But now we have a need for clarity.
The diet I’m talking about is not a nutritional plan. It’s a spiritual one.
Eating vegetables and drinking water wasn't Daniel’s formula for success.
What was Daniel’s formula for
success? What was his priority? Doing things God’s way. There’s
nothing wrong with eating meat, and the Bible itself doesn’t command
teetotalism. And as N.T. believers we don’t
have any food taboos. No, the first and only priority on their mind was
pleasing and obeying God. And that should be ours as well.
That also means sacrifices for the
sake of God’s kingdom. It means that your Father might call upon you to give up
something that as a believer you normally wouldn’t be forbidden. Let’s take
money for example. There’s nothing wrong with making money in and of itself.
Just because a believer’s wealthy doesn’t mean he's disobedient. But our Savior,
when he called people to follow him, commanded some of them to
give up everything they owned, while others he didn’t, like Mary, Martha
and Lazarus.
But the point here is that he has the right to do so. Please get it into your head: You don’t belong to yourself. You
belong to your Lord, twice over—once because he made you, and twice because he
bought you. And part of that package deal is that he reserves the right
to ask that you give up whatever needs to be sacrificed for the Kingdom.
Something else we need to notice
here: Our Lord doesn’t call upon us to make sacrifices because he hates to see
us prosperous or happy or well-fed. He calls for them because they fit into his
plan to glorify his Name among the nations. In Daniel and co.’s case, this was to put them to the head
of the pack. The Lord used their sacrifice to advance his Kingdom purposes, and
of course they made out pretty well out of the deal.
If the Lord asks you to give
something up, trust him and do it. He’ll take that small thing you give up, and
in the end you’ll be glad you did. Remember, no one in the history of mankind
has ever done things God’s way who ended up regretting it.
What are you waiting for? Try it
out.
Father whatever you ask of me, the
answer’s “Yes.” What else could it be?
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