God Comes First

Good morning and welcome to Our Daily Walk.

Audio version at http://tinyurl.com/28xp54

We are so fortunate to live in a free country. Our government does not prevent us from coming together to worship God. Neither does it force us to do so.

Religious freedom was one of the motivations for people to come to this new country. State sponsored religion had shown itself to be ineffective and much politicized. People were rejecting that concept and longed for something more personal, more meaningful, and more righteous.

Religious freedom entails the free exercise of religion. A person may choose to worship one god or many gods or may choose to worship no gods at all. We are free to choose. No one will prevent you from worshiping and no one will force you to worship. We are fortunate.

But the day may come when we are not so free. Laws have been passed in other countries that control the exercise of religion. In fact, some countries still have state sponsored religions and restrict the presence of other religions.

How would we fare in such a setting? As a Christian, if our government passed a law declaring that we should all worship some other god, what would we do?

I would hope that we could all remember to put God first in our lives. Whatever else happens, we should never abandon what we know to be right.

We can look to Daniel as an example for us. In Daniel 6:1-23 we find the story of Daniel and his disobedience that landed him in the den of lions.

The king of that time was Darius. He placed 120 satraps, or princes, to be over the kingdom. And over these he placed three governors. Daniel was one of these governors, a very prominent position.

Daniel excelled in his position due to his excellent spirit and the king contemplated putting him over the entire kingdom. This displeased some of the others so they conspired to find some way to keep him from that promotion. But they could find no fault or error in him at all.

But then they found a way to cause Daniel to fall. It was in the way he worshipped his God. They manufactured a dilemma for Daniel. Approaching King Darius, they praised him and appealed to his ego. They placed before him a royal statute that would make it a capital crime to worship or pray to any god or man other than the king for 30 days. Taken with his subjects the king signed the decree.

This law was only in effect for 30 days, and according to their laws, once a law was signed it could not be changed. So here is the choice for Daniel. He can keep praying to his God like always or he can suspend that activity for just a month and pray to the king. His job and his life are both on the line. Which would come first—his life or his God?

Daniel 6:10 says, “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. And in his upper room, with his windows open forward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees, three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days.”

Daniel’s faith was such that this law presented no dilemma to Daniel at all. There was never any doubt that he would be faithful to his God. His God came first.

The rest of the story is very familiar to all of us. The king is forced to place Daniel in the den of lions, much to the joy of Daniel’s enemies. Over that night the king is unable to sleep, wondering if the God of Daniel would save him. He did, and the king was overjoyed to be able to release Daniel.

His accusers were then thrown into the den of lions and the king made a new decree to the land. In Daniel 6:26-27, he said,

I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For He is the living God, and steadfast forever; His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed, and His dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues, and He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.

When we put God first, all other things will find their rightful place. Be like Daniel in your life and put God first.

On Our Daily Walk today, may we thank God for the right to freely exercise our religion and worship in our country. May we also seize upon that right and worship faithfully and regularly.

Our thought for the day: “Since we fight for the liberty to worship, should we not make more use of that liberty?”

May God bless you on your daily walk.

© Our Daily Walk, Mike Baker, 2007. Permission is granted to copy these articles provided they are not sold and the author's name and copyright are included.