Skip to main content

Examining yourself



Daniel 4:1

 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.

 

Thought for the day – Examining yourself

Today's story is possibly one of my favourite stories in the Old Testament, it's the story of Nebuchadnezzar and how he was driven mad as a result of his arrogance, then restored to his place, and in the process wrote this amazing letter explaining what happened to him and giving praise to God. It's a story how the most powerful man in the world came to understand that actually he wasn't the most powerful being in the world, that he was under the authority of Yahweh, the King of heaven.

And one of the things that strikes me about this story is that Nebuchadnezzar was warned, he'd had a dream that he would be cast out, the dream was a tree being cut down, a magnificent tree being cut down to size, we are not kings, I think that's blatantly obvious, we are not people in positions of huge authority, but I do believe that God holds us accountable, that when we behave in ways that go against God will for our lives or bring God into disrepute or place ourselves in positions above God then we run the risk of being deposed like Nebuchadnezzar was, church history is full of church leaders and family leaders and people in authority who've been overthrown, kicked out, deposed, for want of a better phrase, because of their arrogance, because they have placed themselves first, because they've given themselves the credit rather than God the credit, and so the question is, as we examine our own lives, do we do the same, who gets the credit for the good things we have in our lives, who gets the credit for the great things we see being done in our communities, because if it's not God, then we are just being another Nebuchadnezzar.


This blog post is part of the Walking the Way Podcast series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What does it mean to put Jesus first?

What does it mean to put Jesus first? John 12:1-8   Philippians 3:4b-13 What does it mean to put Jesus first? I ask this because as always I try to find a link between the two lectionary readings and as I was thinking about the readings the thing that I recognized across both these passages was the thought that both Mary and Paul are putting Jesus first. In John, we have this wonderful account of Mary anointing Jesus. It’s a passage we think we know reasonably well. It’s not the only account of Jesus being anointed, and most Biblical scholars agree that this account is the same as the accounts found in Luke and Matthew. Details vary but essentially it is the same account. In the account we see Jesus reclining at a table and then Mary prostrates herself at Jesus’ feet and empty’s a whole jar of nard on Jesus. And then wipes Jesus feet with her hair. Two things strike me here. Firstly Nard was not cheap. John notes that is was the equivalent of a year’s worth of wag...
7 comments
Read more
Ecclesiastes 3:1 There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven   Thought for the day The blogger Jill Printzenhoff writes about a time how she went fishing and caught nothing and yet the fisherman next to her managed to pull out seven. They were using different bait and she describes it as not her day. She finishes her blog post with these words: ‘You keep striving, you keep working, and you keep on keeping on. Because some day when you cast your line . . . you will be at the right spot at the right time . . . and that day will be your day . . . the day you catch that all elusive fish!’ I believe that there is a time for everything under heaven and earth and sometimes, well actually, all the time we need to be patient and wait because the reality of the situation is we are working to God’s time. The writer of Ecclesiastes also says this about God’s timing: ‘He has made everything appropriate[b] in its time. He has also put eternity in...
Post a Comment
Read more
 Holiness What does holiness look like to you? Or when you hear the word holy what comes to mind. The reason I’m asking is because for a while now I have been thinking about holiness. What does it mean to be holy and whether or not we can truly be holy? We are commanded to be holy both in the Old Testament and by Jesus who said be holy as your Father in heaven is holy (Matthew 5:48).  John Wesley taught that genuine faith produces inward and outward holiness. He consistently argued that salvation must produce holiness of heart and life, but he never viewed the process as something that would be completed. He taught that despite the inner assurance and regeneration of character that results from knowing that you have been saved, it is never too long before we discover that there is still a root of sin within. However, there is never an occasion or state of true Christian discipleship that does not lead to a deepening of our love for God and for our neighbour and we become mo...
Post a Comment
Read more