Praise God

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Daniel 3:28 which says,

“Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.”

Nebuchadnezzar had made a golden statue and he told the people that whenever they heard any music being played they would have to bow down to it, but Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego (Daniel’s three friends) trusted in God and they would not bow down to the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had made. But Nebuchadnezzar had made a penalty for doing that, it was to throw anyone who didn’t bow down to the statue into a furnace, so Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were taking up to the king and the king was so angry with them that he heated the furnace up seven times hotter and threw them into it. The furnace was so hot that the soldiers who threw them in died because of the heat. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were joined by a fourth person, the son of God and the Lord helped them not to die in the furnace so when they came out Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged that their God was the one true God.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego trusted in the Lord (like the verse says) and they risked their lives to worship the one true God and because they trusted in Him the Lord helped them to walk in and not be harmed. Nebuchadnezzar said “praise God” because the Lord had rescued Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, in fact Nebuchadnezzar even says that the Lord sent His angel to protect the three men.

Believers have a God that they can trust in, a God that sent His one and only son to die on the cross for our sins because He loved (and loves) us. Unbelievers think that they can trust in their sins but instead their sins make them feel even worse. If you are an unbeliever than you are dead in your sins, why don’t you accept Christ as your savior and as the rock that you can lean on? Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for giving your son to die for my sins, please come into my heart and make me clean and please help me to accept you as my savior in Jesus Name Amen.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego trusted in God and they were willing to give up their life for Him, as Christians we should trust God and we should be willing to give up our life for Him. Jesus gave up His life with our sins and God’s wrath on Him at our place on the cross, now we should love Him (because He first loved us) and we should be willing to give up our life for Him. Even if it isn’t our life that we give up we should still live like Him (no one is perfect but Jesus is in us and He is making us more like Him) and we should spread the Gospel to others and we should trust in Jesus.

Praise God for all that He has done for us. Jesus, You are so good to us to let us trust in You and to die for our sins, thank You so much. Jesus died for our sins and He is helping us in everything we do, we should praise and worship Him for that, thank You so much for everything that You have done for us.

Are you trusting in Jesus?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

I will interpret the kings dream

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Daniel 2:24 which says,

“Then Daniel went to Arioch, whom the king had appointed to execute the wise men of Babylon, and said to him, “Do not execute the wise men of Babylon. Take me to the king, and I will interpret his dream for him.”

Daniel and all the wise-men were going to die (including his friends) because the king had a dream and the sorcerers that he called in couldn’t tell him his dream. But Daniel told his friends to pray to God and in the night Daniel had a vision of the kings dream and so he told the man in charge of them not to kill all the wise-men but to instead bring him to the king so that he could tell him his dream. In other words Daniel risked his life to save all the wise-men by telling the king his dream.

Daniel risked his life to save the wise-men from dying, and that is a perfect picture of Jesus who was (and is) the son of God. We were going to die because of our sins unless we could find a perfect sacrifice that would die for our sins. But there wasn’t even one perfect sacrifice anywhere on earth, but Jesus was perfect and He came down from heaven to atone for our sins on the cross. Because He was (and is) the son of God He was (and is) perfect. He didn’t only risk His life, He died for our sins so that we could live, He took our sins and God’s wrath on Him and He took our place on the cross. Thank you Jesus.

Because we are believers of Jesus we have a mediator who atoned for every sin that we have done and ever will do. But unbelievers don’t have anyone that they are trusting in that could atone for their sins, if you are an unbeliever why don’t you accept Christ as your mediator now? Dear Heavenly Father thank you for being our mediator, help me to trust in you and to believe in you and please live in me so that I can become more like you.

Daniels friends prayed that they would have a vision, and God gave one to them, now we should pray to God that He would make us more like Him. We should pray to Him when we are happy and when we are sad just like how Daniel and his friends prayed. Thank you Jesus for providing for our needs.

Jesus was our mediator, how amazing is it that Jesus would die on the cross and then on the third day rise from the grave and then go up to the Father and plead on our behalf. Thank you so much Jesus for loving us so much, for atoning for our sins on the cross and, for mediating on our behalf so that we would live.

Are you trusting in Jesus who died on the cross for you?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

Test your servants

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Daniel 1:12-15 which says,

“¹² “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink.¹³ Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” ¹⁴ So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days. ¹⁵ At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.

Doctrine (what it meant to them): In these verses Daniel is asking the man who is in charge of him and all the men that the king had brought to him if him and his friends could, instead of defiling themselves by eating what the king had given them, eat vegetables and water. The man then told him that if they didn’t look as good as the others then he would be killed, so Daniel asked the man if they could have a test for 10 days and then see what they looked like compared to the others and Daniel and his friends looked healthier than the others the man gave everyone vegetables and water. God helped Daniel and his friends to be in the king’s service after that.

The Lord had a plan for Daniel and his friends and He helped them in everything they did. The Lord helped Daniel and the Lord helped us by atoning for our sins. The Lord sent an atoning sacrifice that completely atoned for us, and that sacrifice was Jesus. Jesus, the son of God (and God Himself) died for our sins by coming down from heaven and dying on the cross for us, thank you Jesus.

Evangelism (arguments for unbelievers): Daniel and his friends were healthier than the others that were there because the Lord helped them to know that they should eat something other that what was given to them and the Lord made them healthier. As Christians we have a healthier spiritual life than unbelievers, in fact unbelievers are dead in their sins. Everyone is born dead because of their sins, but because of Christ’s sacrifice for us we are now living in Him. It is much better to be alive in Christ who gives you total satisfaction that it is to be dead in sins that make you think they are satisfying.

Exhortation (what we do as believers): As believers we should do something, we should eat of Christ. Of course I’m not talking physically I’m talking spiritually, we should read our Bibles and pray to God and we should thank Him for everything He has done for us. We can’t look at the bread of life when we are hungry believers, think it looks delicious and then just walk away from it, we need to eat the bread of life we need to read our Bibles.

Exaltation (exalting God for what He has done for us): Thank you Jesus for being our bread of life, for giving us life, and for making us have a healthy spiritual life. Thank you for renewing us, you are an amazing God. Thank you for dying on the cross to save us from our sins, thank you for everything you have done for us.

Are you trusting in what Jesus has done for us?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

“The Lord is there”

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 48:35 which says,

“The distance all around will be 18,000 cubits.^[a]
“And the name of the city from that time on will be:
  THE LORD IS THERE.”

Doctrine (what it meant for them): The Lord is telling them that the name of the city from that time on (what this passage is speaking of when it says “that time on” is the time after they com out of captivity and all the tribes get their land) would be “The Lord is there” and the reason for that was because the Lord was with the Israelites. When the Israelites humbled themselves and cried out to the Lord in their captivity the Lord came and rescued them and then they became a city and that city would be called “the Lord is there” and then the Israelites would no that the Lord was there and that they can call to the Lord. The doctrine in this passage is that the Lord is with His people.

The Lord was with His people the Israelites, He helped them out of their captivity, He helped them win battles He helped them with everything that they did as long as they obeyed Him. The Lord was with His people Israel and He is now with us. He helped us our of our captivity by sending a sacrifice that would atone perfectly for our sins, that sacrifice was Jesus Himself who is the son of God and who is perfect. Jesus came down from heaven to atone for our sins because He loved us. He loved us so much that He died a criminals death on the cross. Thank you Jesus.

Evangelism (arguments for unbelievers): The Lord is with His people, He helps them, and His people are Christians. In fact we aren’t only His people, we are His sons and daughters by way of adoption through Christ. We have a rock that is firm, a rock that we can stand upon, whereas unbelievers have sinking-sand as their support. Unbelievers aren’t putting their trust in the Lord, the Lord is not in their hearts like He is with believers. With an unbeliever the Lord is not there, but with a believer He is, how much better is it to be a christian and have a hope that we can lean on.

Exhortation (what we do as believers): As believers we have a rock to lean on, the Lord is with us, but we have to do something too. We have to lean on that rock, if we are being carried away by a flood and there is a stout rock that we can grab onto and that we can stand on we wouldn’t just look at it and say “wow what a sturdy rock, it would be a great foundation to stand on” and then not do anything. We would grab onto that rock to live, and we have to do the same think with Jesus, we should grab onto Him and hold onto Him. That doesn’t mean that we can, if we are true believers, fall away but we can become luke-warm. We should hold onto Christ, and we should worship Him for all that He has done for us.

Exaltation (exalting Christ for what He has done for us): Jesus has done so much for us. He is our sturdy rock that we can stand upon and that we can hold onto if we are falling, He is our savior from sin, He is our Lord that lives in us. Thank you so much Jesus, we should worship Christ for what He has done for us.

Are you trusting in Jesus as your rock?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

Salty water turned into fresh water

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 47:8-9 which says,

“He said to me, “This water flows toward the eastern region and goes down into the Arabah,^[a] where it enters the Dead Sea. When it empties into the sea, the salty water there becomes fresh. ⁹ Swarms of living creatures will live wherever the river flows. There will be large numbers of fish, because this water flows there and makes the salt water fresh; so where the river flows everything will live.”

Doctrine (what it meant to them):What we see here is Ezekiel being told that salty water will go down into Arabah and then it was going to enter the Dead Sea. Then when it emptied into the sea the salty water would become fresh. To them that meant that fish would be there for them to catch and that they could drink of the fresh water and that they could catch game because animals came to drink of the water and where the river flowed everything would live. The Lord was being merciful to them and letting them have fresh water and fish and animals.

The Lord was merciful to the Israelites in that not only did He provide fresh water for them but He allowed sacrifices to be made that could atone for their sins. The Lord was merciful to the Israelites by doing that and He was merciful to us by sending a sacrifice that atoned for our sins. Jesus Christ (who was (and is) the son of God and who was (and is) perfect) died for us by coming down and dying on a cross. The Bible says that no man has greater love that to lay down his life for his friends, but Jesus not only did that He laid down His life for His enemies. Thank you Jesus.

Evangelism (arguments for unbelievers): Jesus came down from heaven and turned the salty water of our sin into fresh clean pure water. He gave us His righteousness, what do you think is better, having salty unclean water or fresh pure water? It is the same with being a believer or unbeliever, unbelievers have salty unclean hearts that are full of sin, but believers have clean pure hearts that are cleansed by Jesus’ blood. We are clean in the site of God because Jesus gave us His righteousness.

“God made him who had no sin to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (NIV 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus gave us His righteousness in exchange for our sins. He made us pure and clean, we just have to accept Him as our savior. But does that mean we can live the way we want? Yes, don’t get me wrong we can’t just go around sinning like because we are Christians we have a license to sin. We can live the way we want, but if you are a true believer you want to follow Jesus’ example.

Exhortation (what we do as believers): We’ve established that Jesus gives us the fresh water to make us clean. But that doesn’t mean we should just stare at it, that won’t do anything for us. We as Christians need to drink the water that purifies us, we need to ask Jesus for forgiveness of sins, and trust me He will forgive us. So we need to ask Jesus for forgiveness of sins everyday and we should ask the person we might have sinned against.

Exaltation (exalting God for what He has done for us): Now that we know what the passage meant for them, and how that is an argument and how that is what we should do, now we need to exalt God for what He has done for us. Jesus died for our sins, now we should praise Him for what He has done. Dear heavenly father, thank you so much for all that You have done to atone for our sins, please help me to become more like You. Help me to praise and worship you for what You have done for us, in Jesus name Amen.

Are you trusting in Jesus and what He has done to save us from our sins?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

The prince is to be among them

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 46:10 which says,

“The prince is to be among them, going in when they go in and going out when they go out.”

Doctrine (what it means to them): In this verse you can see that the prince was supposed to be like the people in that he had to go into the temple to worship at the same time that the Israelites did and he had to go out of the temple at the same time the Israelites did. He didn’t have a special time that he had to go in when all the Israelites had to wait, he did have to stand in the front gate and have an offering made for him but other that he worshiped at the same time that the people did.

The prince was to worship at the same time that the people did, in essence he was becoming one of the people when he did that, and our high priest and our prince made it so that we could become like Him. Jesus was (and is) our high priest and our prince (or our king) and He atoned for our sins. He atoned for our sins by dying on the cross for our sins, He was (and is) perfect and He died for our sins on the cross. He actually died for our sins, on a cross. Thank you Jesus.

Evangelism (arguments for being a Christian): How much better is it to be a son or a daughter of God that it is to be a child of the devil wearing rags and eating garbage for our food. How much better is it to be taken in by the king and clothed in robes of righteousness and to be counted as a son or daughter of the king that to be, like the Bible says, a fool and say that there is no God. By Jesus’ death on the cross, He made us sons and daughters of the king, thank you Jesus.

Exhortation (what we should do): I’m not saying, though, that being a Christian is easy. No, as a Christians you will suffer persecution and hard times, but if you pray God will bring you through it. The Bible tells us to pray and ask God to help us through hard times and to read our Bibles and to find the Gospel in every passage. What it means to be a Christian is to worship God, to pray to Him and ask Him for help and forgiveness (and of course to thank Him). Also we should live like Christ, of course we still have our flesh and no one is perfect but Christ helps us to be like Him, so we should praise God we should pray to God we should study His word and we should ask God to help us to be like Him.

Exhalation (worshiping God): Jesus died for our sins on the cross. He actually came down from heaven to atone for our sins, now we should worship Him and praise Him for everything that He has done for our sins on the cross. Even in the valley of the shadow of death Jesus is with us so we should praise and worship Him for not only dying for our sins and making us sons and daughters of God, but because He is always with us and He knows what is best for us so He gives us what we need. Jesus loved us so much that He died for our sins, thank you Jesus for atoning for our sins on the cross.

Are you trusting in Jesus as your savior?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

The prince will atone for the people

Hi God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 45:17 which says,

“It will be the duty of the prince to provide the burnt offerings, grain offerings and drink offerings at the festivals, the New Moons and the Sabbaths—at all the appointed festivals of Israel. He will provide the sin offerings,^[a] grain offerings, burnt offerings and fellowship offerings to make atonement for the Israelites.”

In this verse we see that the prince is responsible for providing the sacrifices for all the festivals that would atone for the people’s sin. The prince would take a sheep from all flocks of 200 sheep that were well watered and then he would give those to the priest’s who would bring the sacrifice to atone for the people. It was the duty of the prince to provide for the people.

What a perfect picture of our prince. You see the Israelites needed to have sacrifices that would atone for their sins, and the prince provided all the sacrifices on that were for the festivals, and we were like the Israelites in that we needed a sacrifice that would perfectly atone for our sins. Our prince provided that for us, and our prince is Jesus the son of God (and God Himself). Jesus is our prince (and He is our king) and He provided a sacrifice that atoned for our sins perfectly.

What was that sacrifice? Our prince Jesus didn’t only provide the sacrifice, He was our sacrifice. He was the sacrifice that atoned for our sins, He died on a cross for our sins. Jesus who was (and is) God actually died for sinners. Jesus is like the Israelites’ prince because He atoned for our sins. But there are some differences and they are that the Israelites’ prince did it because of duty and Jesus (like John 3:16 says) did it out of love for us. Also the Israelites’ prince provided the sacrifices that were needed for all the festivals and Jesus atoned for our sins once and for us.

Jesus died for us on the cross, and He did it because He loved us. He took our sins on Him so and He gave us red robes of righteousness through His blood,

“God made him who had no sin to be sin^[a] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (NIV 2 Corinthians 5:21)

Jesus gave us the righteousness of God in exchange for our sins, now we should give Him our worship and we should share the Gospel with others.

Are you trusting in our prince, Jesus Christ?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

The sin offering for the priest

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 44:27 which says,

“On the day he goes into the inner court of the sanctuary to minister in the sanctuary, he is to offer a sin offering^[a] for himself, declares the Sovereign LORD.”

What I think is very interesting about this verse is that the priest had to offer a sin sacrifice for himself, the context shows us that the reason he had to offer a sacrifice for himself was if he defiled himself by going near the dead body of his mother or father, brother or unmarried sister. The Lord did allow the priest to do that, but the priest was only allowed to go near those people if they died and they needed to cleanse themselves then wait seven days and when they did come back to offer sacrifices they had to offer a sin sacrifice for himself. The priest who was atoning for the sins of the people had to atone for his sins by offering a sin sacrifice.

The priest had to offer a sacrifice to atone for his sins before he could atone for the sins of the people. But our high priest didn’t have to do that, because He was perfect, we have a high priest who atoned for our sins with a sacrifice that was perfect and He didn’t have to offer a sin sacrifice for Himself. Our high priest is Jesus, the son of God, and in fact Jesus was not only our high priest but He was our sacrifice. The priests that lived in the Old Testament times weren’t perfect so they had to offer sacrifices for their sins, and the sacrifices that atoned for their sins and the sins of the people weren’t perfect, but Jesus didn’t ever had to atone for Him self with a sacrifice and He was our sacrifice so He atoned for our sins perfectly.

Jesus atoned for our sins perfectly, because He was (and is) perfect. He took our sins on Him and all of God’s wrath that was going to be on us and He took our place at the cross so that He could atone for our sins, but why would He die for our sins on the cross, why would he do that for us?

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” (NIV 1 John 3:16)

Because of Jesus we now know what love is, Jesus didn’t only love us He was (and is) love and He loved us so much that He died on a cross to atone for our sins. Thank you so much Jesus, thank you for dying for us and atoning for our sins. We should love Jesus for all He has done for us and we should worship Him and share the Gospel with others.

Are you trusting in Jesus as your savior?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

Purified

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 43:22-23 which says,

“On the second day you are to offer a male goat without defect for a sin offering, and the altar is to be purified as it was purified with the bull. ²³ When you have finished purifying it, you are to offer a young bull and a ram from the flock, both without defect.”

This verse includes part of the regulations that the Israelites (namely the priests) had to follow, they had to cleanse the altar with the blood of a bull with no defect every day for 7 days. Then the altar would be clean and they would be able to offer sacrifices on it for the sins of the people. The priests had to offer a young bull with no defect on it for 7 days (each day would have a different bull) and then they would have to offer sacrifices for the people every day so that the people wouldn’t die because of their sins. Not to mention the priests themselves needed sacrifices so that they wouldn’t die when they went to offer sacrifices.

The priests had to cleanse the altar before they could offer sacrifices to atone for the Israelites sins, and we needed a sacrifice too, but there wasn’t a perfect sacrifice in the whole world. We needed a perfect sacrifice so that our sins could be atoned for once and for all, so that 1 sacrifice would only die for our sins once, but there wasn’t a perfect sacrifice anywhere in the world. We couldn’t become perfect and we didn’t have a perfect sacrifice, so we were going to die because of our sins.

But the Lord sent a sacrifice that would atone for our sins perfectly, and that sacrifice cleansed us and purified us, that sacrifice was perfectly cleansing. That sacrifice was Jesus who was (and is) the son of God (and God Himself) and who was (and is) perfect and He atoned for our sins on the cross. He actually died for our sins on a cross so that we could live, He died on the cross and perfectly cleansed us.

Now we ask the question why, why would Jesus die for our sins on a cross, why would He do that? Jesus was our atoning sacrifice, and the reason that He died for us is in 1 John,

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (NIV 1 John 4:10)

Jesus loved us so much that He cleansed us of our sins. He loved us first and now we love Him,

“We love because he first loved us.” (NIV 1 John 4:19)

Jesus loved us and no we love Him, we love Him enough to worship Him as our God and savior because He is our God and savior. We should also share the good news of the Gospel with others. Jesus loved us so much that He died for our sins, thank you Jesus.

Are you trusting in Jesus?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.

Ashamed

Hi, God’s word for me today is in Ezekiel 43:10-11 which says,

“Son of man, describe the temple to the people of Israel, that they may be ashamed of their sins. Let them consider its perfection, ¹¹ and if they are ashamed of all they have done, make known to them the design of the temple—its arrangement, its exits and entrances—its whole design and all its regulations^[a] and laws. Write these down before them so that they may be faithful to its design and follow all its regulations.”

The Lord is talking to Ezekiel and He is telling Ezekiel to describe the temple to the Israelites so that they would be ashamed of their sins and consider the perfection of the temple and to turn back to God. The Israelites had sinned against the Lord, that was why the Lord wanted the Israelites to be ashamed and turn back to Him and to follow the regulations of the temple. The only problem was that no man (including the Israelites) could perfectly follow the commands of the old covenant law, that was why the Israelites offered animals as sacrifices, so that their sins could be atoned for and so that they wouldn’t die because of their sins.

The Israelites needed sacrifices to atone for their sins, and we needed to have a sacrifice to atone for our sins too. But we needed a perfect sacrifice, one that would atone for our sins once and for all, one that wouldn’t have to die for our sins over and over and over again. But there wasn’t a sacrifice like that on the earth, and we couldn’t just become perfect, so we were going to die because of our sins. The Israelites offered sacrifices every single day, but we needed a sacrifice that would atone for our sins perfectly.

But the Lord provided that sacrifice for us, God sent a sacrifice that was perfect that atoned for our sins perfectly. He did that for us, He sent a sacrifice down from heaven that would live a perfect life and then die on a criminals cross. That sacrifice was Jesus who was (and is) the son of God (and God Himself) and who was (and is) perfect. Jesus died for our sins on a cross, Jesus was not only sent to atone for our sins, but He actually came down for us. The reason? The reason is in 1 John 4:10 which says,

“This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” (NIV)

Jesus came down from His heavenly home to atone for sinners on a terrible cross with our sins and God’s wrath on Him in our place. He atone for our sins because He loved us. Thank you Jesus for atoning for our sins on a cross. Now we should praise and worship Jesus, and we should share the Gospel with others.

Are you trusting in Jesus and what He did for us on the cross?

Grace and truth, Charity Cleveland.