file: /pub/resources/text/Our.Daily.Bread: db941208.txt
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OUR DAILY BREAD                     Thursday, December 8, 1994
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READ:  Daniel 5

              COURAGE TO STAND ALONE

 "There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the
              Spirit of the Holy God.

                 - Daniel 5:11

It was a morally dark night in Babylon.  Darker than
your workplace, school, or community.  King Belshazzar
had willfully blasphemed God by desecrating the sacred
goblets looted from the temple in Jerusalem.  Now
Babylon and Belshazzar were about to face God's judgment.

Yet in the midst of this gross darkness shone the light
of a single witness:  the prophet Daniel.  Because of
his reputation as a man with "the Spirit of the Holy God"
(Dan. 5:11), Daniel was summoned to interpret the
mystifying message on the wall.

Daniel could have softened God's warning to give it a
meaning the king and his court would rather hear.  He
could have omitted the part about judgment and death.
But instead of muddling the message to please the king,
Daniel remained true to God.  Standing alone before
Belshazzar and his drunken court, he boldly spoke the
whole truth.

It took enormous courage for Daniel to do that, but the
threat from an earthly king was nothing compared to his
allegiance to the King of heaven.  Daniel feared
Belshazzar so little because he feared God so much.

When we share Daniel's heavenly perspective, we find
that God gives us the courage to stand alone too.

    -- Haddon W. Robinson

   In need of strength, we melt into the crowd
  And find that strength grows more elusive still.
     Our courage gone, we call upon the Lord,
   And find our strength renewed to do His will.

    -- Gustafson

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        THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
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      The deeper our conviction,
 the greater our courage to sustain it.

THE BIBLE IN ONE YEAR:  Ephesians 4-6
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Our Daily Bread, Copyright 1994, used by permission of
Radio Bible Class, Grand Rapids, Michigan 49555, USA.
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