DANIEL & HOSEA

My coffee is beside me as I start my blog today.  This will be a long day as I will be driving up to Marysville, WA to pray for my good friend and fellow pastor, Kirby Campbell.  He has been suffering from a spinal infection that has no known cure and leaves him in terrible pain for hours on end, several times a day.  I will join some other pastors to pray over him and pray for him.  Please say a prayer today for Pastor Kirby Campbell.  He started, Northwest Baptist Church in Marysville.  It is a great church.  I love the book of Daniel and Hosea has so many verses that bless my heart.  Here are a few thoughts I gleaned: 1) PROVE THY SERVANTS- In Daniel 1:12-20 we see that God's Ways Can Be Tested!!  Daniel said "prove thy servants".  The proof is in the pudding!!  The Christian life is the best life, but that is not just a statement of hope, it's a observable statement of fact!  "Oh taste and see that the LORD is good."  Daniel and his friends were the proof and the proof is not marginal.  "ten times better" in "all matters of wisdom and understanding" from those "in all his realm".  WOW!!  If we obey God's Word, we too can expect God to bless us exceptionally. 2) THE RISE AND FALL AND RISE OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR- If you look at chapter four, and notice little words and phrases, you will realize how the king spoke when God exalted him and when God was ready to lower him.  Chapter four begins with Nebuchadnezzar using words like "His signs!"; "His wonders!"; "His kingdom"; and "His dominion".  The emphasis was on God, not upon himself.  But then later in the same chapter we start seeing words like: "I have built"; "my power"; "my majesty".  There words sealed the doom of the king.  Pride goeth before a fall.  We should never give into the sinful temptation to be proud.  God hates a proud and haughty spirit and will abase those who possess it.  So it happened to the king.  For seven years he was like a wild animal, but when he saw the light and came to himself, then he started again to use words like: "I bless the most High"; "I praised and honored Him";  "His kingdom";  "He doeth according to His will"; "His hand"; Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honour the King of heaven".  BACK ON TRACK!!  3) SOMEONE IS GOING TO GET AN ANSWER - Dan. 9:3  "And I set my face unto the LORD God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting, and sackcloth, and ashes:"  When you get this serious with God, God is going to answer you.... and He did Daniel. 4) LACK OF KNOWLEDGE- Hosea 4:6 says: "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge:"  Not knowledge concerning the secular things around us, but scriptural knowledge that comes from God's Holy Word.  If we don't know what the Word says, then we miss out by disobedience and ignorance of God's blessings!  We must get into God's Word and know what it says! 5) FAULTY HEART- Hosea 10:2 "Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty:"  WE cannot have a divided heart and be a good servant of the Lord.  An double minded man is unstable in all his ways, God's Word tells us.  We must have a clear focus upon the Lord. Have a blessed day and pray for me too.  It is about four and a half hours up to Marysville, and then I'll spend an hour or so and come home.  Long day ahead of me, but for a good friend I'm glad to do it.  God bless you!  Pastor Mike Mutchler