ALIENS  (read Daniel 1)

We sang “I am resolved no longer to linger” and “This world is not my home.”

Daniel and his friends were abducted and taken to Babylon.  There, they needed to live out their faith in a pagan context.  They were a part of the nobility in Israel and were to be trained for leadership in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar.

We considered such questions as:

• Why were their names changed?
• In what ways did Nebuchadnezzar try to train (or control) them?
• What was the nature of Daniel’s resolution and commitment?
• How did these four young men hold steady?
• How were they pressured to conform?
• How does current culture try to control us?
• How can we exhibit “a spirit of fasting” by limiting ourselves and thereby be strong?

Verses to ponder:

(1 Pet 2:9-12 NIV)  But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. {10} Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. {11} Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. {12} Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

(Rom 12:1-2 NIV)  Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. {2} Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.

TLT