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What You Do with Your Shopping Cart Says a Lot About You
Are you a good person?
There’s an easy way to tell, according to the Internet at least.
It’s based on what you do with a shopping cart when you are done with it.
If you put it in the designated shopping cart collection area in the parking lot, you’re good.
If you leave it to drift off into parking spots, you’re bad.
The test has been discussed on Reddit and Twitter.
On Reddit, a user laid out a very detailed description of the theory that essentially claims:
The shopping cart is what determines whether a person is a good or bad member of society.
Objectively, the correct action to take is to put the shopping cart where it’s supposed to go.
It’s not illegal to abandon the cart, so you can do that without consequence.
… Therefore the shopping cart presents itself as the apex example of whether a person will do what is right without being forced to do it.
No one will punish you … or fine you … you gain nothing by returning the shopping cart.
You must return the shopping cart because it is the right thing to do
Today, you are going to hear about the courage of Daniel to do the right thing even when no one is looking.
What do you do when no one is looking.
Introduction
Anytime someone mentions the name of Daniel the first thing that comes to people mind is the night with Lions in their den of sure death.
However, this is actually a culmination of all that Daniel has been through in his 70 plus years of life.
This is actually an act of the final confession of Daniel and a life of faithfulness lived out before a pagan world and a Holy God.
Daniel has stood in the court of King Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and now king Darius the Mede of Persia.
And Daniel is still serving the King of Kings.
King Darius the Mede has given scholars difficult because other places in the Old Testament we are lead to believe that it is King Cyrus the Persian that God chooses to use.
Additionally no records of King Darius appear during this time.
However in two different places in Daniel he affirms that it was Darius who was king of the Persians.
I believe that we must take Daniel at his word by identifying Darius as king of the Medes and Persians.
BIG IDEA: Unshakable faith comes from being Unmistakably Shaken.
1.
We are in a perpetual Kingdom against Kingdom battle.
Certainly the powers of darkness had endeavored to wear out Daniel since the beginning of his captivity by wave upon wave of attacks on his faithfulness to God.
One final effort now occurs in this chapter.
It serves as a salutary reminder to us that temptations to compromise are never isolated incidents in our spiritual life but are part of a larger strategy of Satan against us.
*The Kingdom of Darkness seeks to wear down the Kingdom of Light.
We see this vividly lived out in Jesus ministry.
Everywhere Jesus went the kingdom of darkness sought to wear on Jesus.
Satan assaulted him in the wilderness.
When Satan had been repelled at every turn he only retreated to look for an opportune time to attack again.
Satan would continue to try to no avail to compromise Jesus ministry.
Many Christians mistaken one fight for the whole war.
Many times at this point assuming the war is over they lower their shields and miss the onslaught that is coming.
We tend to assume that the greatest test comes at the beginning of our spiritual journey.
However, the greatest test for Jesus came towards the end of his life here on earth.
Note: We are strengthened through out a life of successful resistance and then enables us to even have greater resistance.
All heroes of the faith experience early levels of resistance to prepare them the even greater battle ahead.
Some falter at points in their Journey (Peter’s denial, Davids infidelity, Abraham’s faith) However they were all strengthened again and went on to give greater glory to God.
*The Kingdom of Darkness seeks to attack the Character of the Kingdom of light.
In the manner of modern day character assassinations the governors and satraps attempted to find fault with Daniel to trap him.
Find something flaw in Daniels life or work to disqualify him.
However, their attempt to outline his weaknesses only highlighted his outstanding qualifications for high honor.
“Because they could not find no charge of fault, because he was faithful, nor was there any error or fault found in him.”
In all relationships he had been faithful, in relationship to the law he had been faultless.
They realized that the only way to get rid of Daniel was to manufacture a conflict between the law of God and the law of their land.
Note: While Daniels colleagues had come to hate him they could not help but recognize his integrity.
vs. 7 “The all is no slip of the tongue” it’s interesting that Darius agreed to the edict without finding out if Daniel whom he trusted approved.
Darius didn’t have enough sense to say, “hey wait a minute there is someone missing from this equation.”
Note: 2nd ploy, they knew that there was a price that Daniel would not play in loyalty to the king, he would not lay aside his loyalty to God.
2 Lessons from this situation:
1).
Opposition to God will never be honest, it will always have an element of deceit.
2).
We should not lose sight of the fact that the conflict in Daniels life which is to take him to the den of lions is really a conflict between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light.
2. Surrendered praying moves the pretender to a contender
The forces of hell had assaulted the city of God and from all appearances had succeeded.
Daniel was in a “Catch–22” situation.
Yet the temptation to compromise was objectively a very great one
Darius’s decree had an expiration of only 30 days.
It was not as if Daniel was asked to deny his faith or bow to a pagan idol.
Darius’s decree made no such demands.
Simply refrain from worshiping God for one month out of the year, one month out of an entire lifetime.
This would have seemed like a small sacrifice to those who left Jerusalem for Babylon, those who had lost heart.
Would it make any difference in our Churches if prayer were banned for the next 30 days.
Perhaps the answer would be both embarrassing and startling.
Prayer has become one of the greatest missing components.
We have seen the deadly prayerlessness in our Churches, in our Homes, and in our lives.
could it be that Satan no longer calls for Darius like legislation in western culture because he no longer needs to do so.
Only in places where people are praying like Daniel does his seek to take aim.
*Surrendered praying shows a surrendered life
Note: Daniel was not fearful of what could happen to his life.
Perhaps he was modeling the words of Jesus in Matthew 10:28 “Do not fear those who can kill the body and not the soul, rather fear him who can destroy both body and soul in hell.”
When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went into his chamber with his window opened to Jerusalem where he had routinely prayed three times a day and got on his knee’s before his God.
Surrendering is a term used in battle it implies giving up all rights to the conqueror.
When an opposing army lays down their arms the winner takes complete control.
Surrendering to God works the same way, He has a plan for your life and surrendering to Him means we set aside our own plans and agenda’s and wholeheartedly pursue His.
The good news is that God’s plan for us is always the best plan unlike our own plan’s that lead to death and destruction.
To become one with Jesus Christ, a person must be willing not only to give up sin, but also to surrender his whole way of looking at things.
Being born again by the Spirit of God means that we must first be willing to let go before we can grasp something else.
The first thing we must surrender is all of our pretense or deceit.
What our Lord wants us to present to Him is not our goodness, honesty, or our efforts to do better, but real solid sin.
Actually, that is all He can take from us.
And what He gives us in exchange for our sin is real solid righteousness.
But we must surrender all pretense that we are anything, and give up all our claims of even being worthy of God’s consideration.
Once we have done that, the Spirit of God will show us what we need to surrender next.
Along each step of this process, we will have to give up our claims to our rights to ourselves.
Are we willing to surrender our grasp on all that we possess, our desires, and everything else in our lives?
Are we ready to be identified with the death of Jesus Christ?
-Oswald Chambers “My utmost for His Highest”
*Surrendered praying shows a surrendered Love.
Daniel loved God more than he loved his own life.
We know that the love for God is the most important thing in all the earth.
We can have lot’s of other virtues but if we do not have love we have nothing.
1 Cor.
13. “We are just a clanging gong or a sounding symbol”
Prayer should show what we love the most.
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