“Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee” (Daniel 6:16). If you think people do not know who you serve you could be running into a big mistake. You better know the Lord whom you are serving. The truth here is that even when you are able to erect a façade of Christlike church goer, the Knower of all things, the Holy Spirit knows in whom He dwells. Amen! When the enemy tries to puncture your testimony, it is better that you have hoisting words of faith to share as in Daniel 6:20-22, “And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions? V.21) Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. V.22) My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt”. The word ‘servest’ is the Chaldee pelach (pel-akh’): ‘to serve, worship, revere, minister for, pay reverence to’. It corresponds to the Hebraic palach (paw-lakh’) ‘to slice, that is, break open or pierce’. In worship you are spiritually broken opened, absolutely, to the object of worship. An utmost caution I will advisedly enjoin you take, is to make sure that you are actually bowing down to the Righteous One.

As an Israelite prophet, Jonah, is conversant with Psalm 139:7-10 to ever think of “to flee unto Tarshish from the presence of the LORD”, Jonah 1:3. We are as guilty as Jonah today. Do we not dwell more on: ‘what I want’, ‘what I believe or know’, ‘what I’ve been made to understand’ etc. What about God’s desire, intention and express word, what about these? A rational man holds his doctrinal dogmas of the denominational stand, his deeply rooted religious beliefs or the philosophical orientation of his psyche. God told Jonah, “Go to Nineveh, a country I want to deliver from my fury”. Where did Jonah go? He journeyed farthest westwards to Tarshish, diametrically opposite to a geographically eastern Nineveh. Why? “They’re idolatrous. It’ll be difficult to bow them before Jehovah. They could invade Israel (Hosea 9:3; Hos 11:5; Hos 11:11; Amos 5:27). God, I just don’t like this nation of idolatry which I know You’ll pardon”. He concluded his thought, “Will it not be a waste of time?” Science debunks the habitation possibility of a living person inside a fish. The Bible teaches that God made it a possibility. I believe it (even if it was the vice versa)! Your disobedience may not, in the similitude of Jonah, afford you a second chance. Jonah came out from the fish with no recorded bruise. Nineveh was delivered because she repented. Just as Jonah did not witness the expected shame of Nineveh, so will the good Lord see you through all your trials and troubles.

                                           “Peter, do you love me?”……… “Feed my sheep”.

It was the grace of God that redeemed Peter for a reinstatement of his apostleship. The guy is brash: like so many of us. Forward, characteristically, thinking he knew almost all. Knew not a twentieth of what is claimed. He was bold enough to use the sword. When Jesus was marched away the tough guy capitulated, completely! So, we truly need Jesus to surmount our trials, after all? John 15:5, “I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing”. Peter reminded himself that Jesus is Lord – the Christ – so, he came back for he understood, “All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out” [John 6:37]. Peter knew he had scaled through this trying and troublesome hurdle when the interview which began with, “Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?” He was shaken some more till it was all over when the Lord of lords reinstalled him in his apostolic office with the authoritative, “Feed my sheep”, in John 21:17.

Keep looking unto Jesus and you will be restored to the lost estate in the name of Jesus. Sometimes your trials are to test your faithfulness to Him, with whom we all have to do (Hebrew 4:13). When trials show up it is God’s way of vindicating us. It is at this same time Satan shoots troubles to effect a derailment. A thought of making more money cropped up in the mind of Judas Iscariot. There is absolutely nothing wrong with being or wanting to be rich. But when the trajectile process to the accumulation leads to an untoward conclusion, the son of Iscariot could not say no. Iscariot means: ‘a man of murder; a hireling’. At the time of trials do yourself a favour, take note of the troubling missiles hurled at your thinking faculty. That is where he (Satan -the enemy) is most potent. Iscariot is his father’s name which betoken his sinful origin.                            (…to be concluded…)

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