Rev. Johnson V

12.05.2013

Daniel 6:10 “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime”

Daniel prayed “as usual”. What we do is what we become, as a church we need to be a prayerful church and you can pray! It’s not difficult at all, prayer life will only make you smarter, when you pray and expect God to show up, He will show up! Daniel is a lovely man, who had learnt this lesson “to pray as usual” Prayer is one thing you can do no matter what mood you are in.  Daniel was someone who was caught from Jerusalem and had been a slave in Babylon and through his non- compromising Christian life had an amazing grace from God, Daniel was a person who while talking to God allowed God to speak back to his heart and directed his feelings into what God wanted him to do. Daniel followed God and he rose up to become a great man in the empire of Babylon which was very immoral, violent and evil. There was nothing called morality there and more injustice and in such a culture Daniel was rising as a child of God. Your circumstances have no power on you because when Christ is in your life you will be a ship sailing and nothing will sink you down.

The Bible says as they were looking for a prime minister when they found Daniel. Even though he started as a slave he rose to become the prime minister of Babylon. God is in your future preparing it for you. He got selected and everyone was jealous of Daniel. Today if you have jealous people around you, thank God that people think you’re good and that they’re jealous of your goodness. Bible says people tried to look for evil in him but they could not find any fault in him. Daniel was in the hands of God and they made a law against him because they could not find any fault in him, Daniel was holy and a pure man. They made a law against his faith and his God (that serving his God is wrong) and the law said this “whoever was found praying to God almighty will be put to the lion’s den.” These lions were very ferocious and they used these lions for war and they had more than 1000 lions that would tear the enemy apart. They were warfare lions. When Daniel heard about this law, what did he do?

He walked up into his prayer room and gave thanks to God as usual.

He didn’t allow Babylon to take his vision of God; he chose to have vision of thanksgiving to God! He began to thank God in the presence of his enemies.  

When we become very prayerful, one of the things people are afraid of is excellence. Once you finish your prayer, you behave like a child of God and be excellent, you are a royal priest hood, you have to go up, and Jesus didn’t not come to give you life of depression but to give you life in abundance. Don’t be afraid of excellence.

Secondly when we become very prayerful, we fight excellence. While we are people of prayer we need to be people who make excellence a part of our lives. When Christ is in us we have an obligation to be excellent.

Daniel 11:32 “people that do know their God shall be strong, and do exploits”