Except the real trial happened before the fire!
Reading:

Daniel 3:19-29

Do you know what it feels like to face saucy uncooperativeness or defiant disobedience? No, I do not believe Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had such a spirit about them in this whole matter. But my question to you stands. Think about it… OK, now let’s move on here.

Here is what God had said, clearly and plainly, hundreds of years earlier (Exodus 20:3-5) and which these men took literally as to them personally in their time:

  1. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
  2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth:
  3. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God…

What the king ordered them personally to do was just as plain and clear. So was their reply (Daniel 3:16-18): Continue reading →

The ample sufficiency of unmerited generosity
Reading:

Matthew 15:21-31

All year I have been working my way through 2 Peter (by “accident”), but this morning I detour with Jesus to the region of Tyre and Sidon. I read the heart-stirring incident of magnificent faith and wonder about my own faith…and about Jesus’ generosity toward me.

Here. You read it. The telling of a great faith that moved…a Phoenician woman:

  1. Then Jesus went thence, and departed into the coasts of Tyre and Sidon.
  2. And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, thou Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil.
  3. But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
  4. But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
  5. Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me.
  6. But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs.
  7. And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.
  8. Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.
  9. And Jesus departed from thence, and came nigh unto the sea of Galilee; and went up into a mountain, and sat down there.
  10. And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus’ feet; and he healed them:
  11. Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel.

I know the record here hits a high point, skipping over many details. But I’m blessed that “Jesus went thence” (21), made a Canaanite woman’s daughter whole, and “departed from thence” (31). Browsing backward through Matthew to find His last stated geographic location, I find “the land of Gennesaret” (Matthew 14:34). That’s on the east side of the Jordan River. It looks to me like Jesus skipped a direct route to the Sea of Galilee and made a big, long loop out close to the Mediterranean Sea in order to give a crumb to a dog, as it were. Wow!

My heart sings at the woman’s faith and tenacity. She didn’t turn away from Jesus’ “insensitive, rude, racist rejections” — nope, none of that quitting stuff for her. Listen… Continue reading →

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