Week 11: Day 2

Intro: Hey everyone! Welcome to Orbit – my name is Lois and I’m going to be leading us through a bible reflection on Daniel 5:23-28

Bible: Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honour the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription.

This is the inscription that was written:
mene, mene, tekel, parsin

Here is what these words mean:
Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.
Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

Thoughts: We find Belshazzar here in this story, and we see that he has been in really close proximity to see God at work in the life of his father. The back story here is that his own father – Nebuchadnezzar – had done a similar thing. He had disregarded God, acted like he wasn’t there and that had left him with his kingdom taken away from him. He’d seen the work of God but Daniel’s challenge to him is that he has not humbled himself before God. He had seen God but actively turned his back on him and lived in a way that had not recognised who God is.

This story is all about humility. The word humility is about thinking of ourselves correctly in regard to others and in regard to God. This is the wake up call God gives Belshazzar – in this dramatic story with the writing literally on the wall.

This is a massive challenge to us and I think it reminds us that it can be really easy to see what God is doing, to be around the things of God and still actively turn our backs on him. If God is who he says he is, we should worship him. If he is all that he says he is, we should give him our full attention and we live in a way that is in line with who he is. He is the one that holds our lives in his hands. We owe God everything. The very fact that we’ve woken up this morning and we are living and breathing and standing, we owe that to God. It is because of his goodness that this whole world exists and is sustained. The only right response to that is to honour him with all we do, to acknowledge him as the one who gives us everything and come to him with gratitude and in humility. To live in a way that matches the truth of who God is.

I’d love to pray for us that as we go through our days today, that we would live in a posture of gratitude and humility towards the God who has been so good to us.

Prayer: Lord God, I thank you so much that we are here this morning because of your goodness. You hold all of our lives in your hands, and we acknowledge you as the source of our lives, the source of everything good that we have and see around us. We pray that you would help us to live in a humble way, that we would live in a way that honours you and all that you are. Amen

Challenge: Today I’d love you to take a moment to thank God and remind yourself that he is the one that holds your life in his hands. Thank him for his provision. Write down five things that you are grateful for that you could so easily take for granted. Remind your spirit that you owe everything to him.