God’s Man

09.12.11

Daniel 4.27 Therefore, Your Majesty, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.” NIV

Telling a king what to do is risky business: he might act… or he might react. Throughout Scripture men have been appointed by God to tell (advise) kings what to do. Some were very good at their jobs and others were just yes-men. The good ones were few and weren’t always favored. The yes-men were plentiful but often just told the ruler what he wanted to hear anyway. Daniel was one of the good ones.

Daniel saw the both the glories and the abuses of Nebuchadnezzar; he saw when the king abused his power and oppressed people needlessly. For all of the things that Nebuchadnezzar did, apparently he was a despot and had a mean streak. So God warned him to straighten up and fly right or suffer the consequences. And God sent His man to deliver the message. It makes me wonder, in whose life today am I God’s man; the messenger?

Well, I know for sure I am supposed to be God’s man to my family. My wife and kids are watching how I act and react. They will size up my faith by what faith they see in me. They will size up my faith by the advice and attention I give them. They will size up my faith by how I treat them, love them, and accept them. They'll notice whether I talk the talk or walk the talk.

And I am to be God’s man among God’s men in the Church. I am to be God’s man in my neighborhood, at my work, and while I am out in the community, shopping or getting gas, or whatever I happen to be doing.

But most importantly I am to be God’s man in my heart – like Daniel was. Daniel apparently did not see himself apart from the Lord. And so like him I am to see myself the same way. Daniel’s foundation was a little different than mine – he was raised in Jewish nobility, and I, in American ignobility – but the truth is our mutual faith is cut from the same bolt of cloth; his before the blood was spilled; mine after. Daniel seemed to get it much earlier than I did and so I have some later-in-life catching up to do. I prayed tonight on the way home: Lord, it isn’t the size of the job, the size of the paycheck, the size of the calling that counts: it’s the size of the heart for You; and the size of my character that counts for anything at all. That’s all that will matter in the end.

I’m not Daniel and I haven’t been called to advise a king but I am Paul and I am to serve a King. My other biblical friend, the apostle Paul, said this: So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. (1 Corinthians 10.31 NIV) My life is pretty tame (and at times pretty lame) compared to Daniel’s but my calling is to walk like him with a heart for God, and in my vocation and avocation, to be, in my day and my way: God’s man.