Daniel Ch. 6

A very important lesson learned today for the millionth time. I can not do everything. I need to rest. I don't get it, this used to be my motto and now I am completely neglecting it! Oh well, going to take it easy this weekend =].

Thoughts on Daniel 6:

This is just a beautiful story. I am quite tired and this story has greatly comforted me. Such a display of God's faithfulness. A few highlights that really stick out:

When we are walking in the favor of the Lord, there will be people who are filled with jealousy.

Daniel is so steadfast in his walk with the Lord that there is no hesitation in continuing his routine when the decree is ordered.

King Darius's intercession for Daniel. Such a powerful yet simple prayer, "May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!"Darius sees that there is something special about Daniel and reacts in true humility.

Well it is bed time! As always, stay blessed and highly favored!

Daniel Ch. 5

Good day! What a wonderful day to be alive.

Picture of the day:

Me and my roommates on our camping trip to North Carolina.

Now for some thoughts on Daniel chapter 5:

Like father like son eh? So we have this new character King Belshezzar who is said to be Nebuchadnezzar's son. I am guessing that the whole "honor God and worship only Him" business was not talked about at their dinner table because Belshezzar absolutely did not get the message. He brings out the sacred dishes the Babylonians had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and partied it up. God runs out of compassion and sends the hand down to right the condemning words. The king consults his wise men first with no luck. His mom reminds him of this guy Daniel who seems to be real good with puzzles so the king sends for him. Daniel tells him the writing on the wall in essence says that he is about to die and his kingdom removed from his hands. So at the end of the rope, Belshazzar has a choice, and I think it is really interesting the choice he makes.

First let's generalize Belshazzar's situation. I believe it is safe to assume he knew he was running from God. This most likely was not a "spur of the moment" incident with the gold and silver dishes. This is a guy who is consciously choosing to live in sin and God is giving him his last chance. I can relate a great deal to this situation just as most others. I grew up hearing the mistakes that my friends and family had made in their past and the strong warnings to honor God with my life. I chose to rebel anyways, and spent many years running from my own guilt and shame. So what kind of response are we going to have when God meets us with such a direct sentence? Here are a few I can think of:

1. Keep running from the truth.
Anger, fear, shame... all of these emotions can keep us in a state of solitude from the helping hand of repentance. Guilt will drive us to crazy ends... and if we don't let down our pride and repent quick we will surely parish into the loneliness of being separated from grace forever. This is how King Ahab responded to Micaiah when placed on the hot seat... and soon found an arrow in between his armor.

2. Try to replace a "good" for what is "best".
This is probably what we do most often when we have been accused, and it is what Belshezzar did after Daniel gave him the interpretation of the words on the wall. But this reaction, even more so than running from God, shows ones ignorance on the true nature of God. We think that we can justify our actions by doing some small "noble" act right at the end. Maybe we offer up a few favors to our accuser or start listing all the reasons we start listing off all of our meaningless accomplishments. For Belshezzar it was making Daniel the third highest ranking leader of his kingdom. But we see what this amounts to... Belshezzar died in his sleep that night, and we surely will too if we do not see what is the "best" thing we can do in any situation.

3. Humble ourselves before God.
This is the best choice always. There are no guarantees on what God will do in any situation, but the bible says that if we humble ourselves before God, He will lift us up in due time. =]

That is all! I have a lot on the agenda today do until tomorrow, stay blessed and highly favored!

Daniel Ch. 4

So I learned an important lesson this weekend. I want home to stay at my parent's new lake house to spend time with my Dad on his 50th birthday. I had a wonderful time, but I realized quickly I would not be able to blog while I was there since we had no internet. At first I was frustrated, but quickly was reminded about the importance of rest and escaping. Here I am! Refreshed and ready for a new week of preparation.

Picture of the Day:

Me and my fellow Georgia Southern Christian Campus Fellowship graduates!

Now Daniel chapter 4:

Nebuchadnezzar. What a character! I think this line describes him quite well, "I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace, contented and prosperous. I had a dream that made me afraid." The epitome of "riding your circumstances" if you ask me. If his kingdom is prosperous he has no worries. He issues decrees as they are ordered to him, doesn't think for himself. He has one dream and all of his peace goes out the window. Then he is disciplined.

Discipline.

I don't know anyone that enjoys discipline. We like to float along like Nebuchadnezzar was doing. We like to give money away, as long as we have plenty for ourselves. We like to help people out, if we have the time to do it. We like to do whatever it takes to make people happy and keep our circumstances in high esteem. But think about how this affects our relationship with God. God desires our praise, adoration, respect, and worship regardless of our circumstances. If we break down and run to our "wise men" first as Nebuchadnezzar did when things get tough, how does that reflect our loyalty to God's name?

What are the "wise men" (things we cling to when things get tough in our lives) in our lives?

God wants to break us of those things. Whether it is a relationship, our prosperity, or maybe just our sanity, God is more than willing to strip us of everything, make us eat grass for seven years, anything to get our attention and turn our head toward Heaven. Pretty simple. But He will always leave the stump for us=].

Well that is all for now! Stay blessed and highly favored.

Daniel Ch. 3

Another great day! Had the opportunity to give some guitar lessons to my friend Jessi, drink some milkshakes with my buds Ant and Kinley, and study a good bit of physics. Tomorrow my Aunt Susan is coming to pick me up and take me up to Atlanta to spend time with my family=].

I had a lesson in patience today as well. When I checked my account, there was a transaction for $140.00 for some mouse rugs? No idea where it came from and after an hour of dialogue over the phone it was all worked out. Good news!

Now for some thoughts on Daniel chapter 3:

For whatever reason Nebuchadnezzar orders the whole kingdom to bow down to this large gold statue of himself. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendago, however, want nothing to do with such worship. Am I the only one who is wondering where Daniel is during this story? So anyways the "astrologers" (probably some of the same people that Daniel saved in the last chapter) catch on and order the king (order the king?) to order them to be thrown into the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar, being the nice guy that he is, gives the trio one last chance before turning up the furnace 7 times hotter than normal and roasting them. Now it is their turn to make the choice, which leads us into my thought for today:

Waiting upon the Lord.

Read S, M, and A's reply: "King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us it...but even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." What do they decide to do? Wait upon the Lord. Whenever we are faced with a crucial decision, this is always the best choice. So what does this look like? Here are the two crucial steps I see:

1. Do not try to defend yourself.
Defending ourselves is always our first instinct. Any time we are put on the spot, maybe we have made a mistake and got caught or been falsely accused, we want to explain ourselves. Explain why it is not fair, how others do not understand; and maybe we are right. Surely S, M, and A were "justified" in not bowing down to the idol of gold. But they did not try to defend themselves, they knew they were honoring God and let their actions speak for themselves.

2. Wait with expectancy and not expectations.
This is huge! Often times when I think about waiting on God, I think about Him doing a specific act in His own timing. God will give me a girlfriend in His timing. God will heal me of this disease in His timing. God will give me a job in His timing. We put our to-do list in God's agenda. No! That is not how God works at all. What did S, M, and A say? Our God is able to deliver us. Not our God will deliver us, He is able. They even lay out how what will happen if God does not. They will still praise Him! Their hope is in the Author, not the outcome. They have expectancy that God will do what is best for them, with no expectations of what will happen. Waiting on the Lord. It's what we are called to do each and every day!

Have a great weekend and as always, stay blessed and highly favored!

Daniel Ch. 2

I met with my friend Dan Barber today, he is a great brother who is fluent in both Spanish and French. He taught me some new Spanish verbs and then we discussed possibly doing some homeless ministry in Savannah this summer. Exciting stuff!


I purchased a new guitar on Monday which I consider both a graduation present to myself and a ministry donation to CCF as we do not have an acoustic-electric guitar for summer worship. My old acoustic guitar I gave away in Peru, and after being blessed with a new guitar right before going to Costa Rica I also gave that one away. Hopefully I will keep this new one for a while! I will get the opportunity to play it tonight for CCF's Thursday night bible study. Here is a picture:

New Guitar

So now onto Daniel chapter two!


We find Daniel living in Babylon working for the king, being faithful to God, and finding favor in those around him. King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream that troubles him greatly and sends for all the magicians and astrologers to not only interpret the dream but give the details as well. The wise men see this as an impossible task and are greatly distressed when the king ordered them all to be executed. When Daniel hears of this decree, he makes a decision to intercede for the other wise men.


Let us think about the idea of intercession.


First of all, when is intercession necessary?
 Intercession is one of those words that has a lot of different connotations to different people, some people may say that it is intense prayer, others may say it is an act of sacrifice. I do not like to get caught up in definitions, I prefer to look at functionality. I believe intercession is necessary whenever there is a specific need that no natural means will fulfill. This happens all the time in our lives. All the time. A family member becomes terminally ill, someone you know gets laid off, or maybe we are just going through a slump and cannot seem to find joy in anything we do. I will make one discrepancy between prayer and intercession. While prayer is ubiquitous for all needs, in my mind intercession involves the needs of others. Going back to Daniel, it was not just him who was going to be executed if the dream was not interpreted. He was standing in the gap between the king and the other wise men of Babylon.


Next, how do we intercede for the needs of others?
For this question, let us go by what the bible says. I will summarize the steps of intercession in three points:


1. Identification
When Daniel heard that the king was to kill all the wise men of Babylon, he returned to his friends and "urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven, so that he and his friends might not be executed..." It was very easy for Daniel to identify with the needs of the wise men, for he shared that need. But this is not always the case. Many times we will have friends who have a need in their life in which we do not understand. Even if this is the case we can always identify with man's inherent fallibility, and this is the key to intercession. When Nebuchadnezzar asks Daniel whether or not he could interpret the dream, he identifies with the sorcerers', magicians', and wise mens' inability to retell the dream and gives God the opportunity to claim the victory.


2. Thanksgiving
I have always seen thanksgiving as the biggest part of having faith. If we remain in the attitude of a beggar, waiting and pleading for God to act, we are not acting in faith. As soon as we know God has heard us we should give thanks knowing that He will act in the best way possible. As soon as God tells Daniel the dream and interpretation, he begins praising God and giving thanks for hearing his plea, even though the need is not yet fulfilled. Faith is in what God is going to do, not what He has done.


3. Action
Part of being in a healthy relationship is it not being one-sided. Growing up I loved helping my mom cook. Sometimes I would ask her to prepare a specific dish for me that I loved very much. She would provide all the ingredients, set up the instruments, and give me instructions, but in the end she always left me to execute the cooking. Even though she was right there watching me it was often terrifying, my greatest fear was messing up. But if she had made it for me I would have never had the opportunity to learn and to grow. The same is true with God. It would have been easy for God to strike down the king and prevent the executions himself, but that would not help establish His relationship with man. God is always setting up opportunities for us to grow closer to Him, if we are willing to act. By standing before the king and believing in the preparation God had given him Daniel partners with God to save the lives of many people. We have that same privilege each and every day, to partner with God and to grow closer to Him.


So that is the big idea. When we see a need, we must identify with those in need, give thanks knowing that God is the fulfillment of that need, and be willing to act in whatever way is necessary. Intercession!




That is all for today, stay blessed and highly favored!

Daniel Ch. 1

So far so good for my agenda this summer. Here are my daily goals:

1. Blog a devotion everyday.
2. Learn Spanish (or improve my Spanish...).
3. Spend a good amount of time working on getting a paper published.
4. Pray for my wonderful students I will be leading next year!
5. Write music.

It is a quite ambitious but I have to stay disciplined! I never would have imagined how hard it is to have all the free time in the world. But for now I have a little less than an hour before I have to take Erin to work so I will give my thoughts on my reading today, Daniel chapter 1:

As I have grown older, my perspective on biblical stories has changed drastically. In the case of Daniel I would say that I have begun to pity him less and less as a refugee to Babylon against his will and begun to see the opportunity that was placed in front of him. He certainly was taken to Babylon on a decree from King Nebuchadnezzar, but think about who Daniel was. The bible says he was a young man "without any physical defect, handsome, showing aptitude for every kind of learning..." and that he himself was from a royal family. Now taking some liberty with my characterization I see a lot of myself in Daniel, perhaps write before I was going off to college. I am not from a royal family but I certainly had a passion to learn new things and a huge heart for adventure. Part of me thinks that Daniel may have been very excited at the opportunity to move to a new place and begin working for such a prestigious kingdom.

So we have Daniel, along with his three friends Shadrach Messhach and Abendago, living in the kings palace. Right away they make a key decision to honor God with their bodies and because of this we are told that God "caused the official to show favor and sympathy to Daniel..." This is a very big point that I think we often take for granted. If we choose to honor God with what we have, His favor and providence is guaranteed! No matter what circumstances we are under the people around us will notice something different about us and we will be "healthier and better nourished" than those who choose to defile themselves with what the world offers.

To pull it all together, I believe we will have great opportunities in this life. Opportunities to travel to other places, meet people who think differently than we do, or work for people who may or may not treat us well and sometimes these opportunities will be out of our control. What we can always control is what we choose to do with the opportunities we are given, to be faithful with what God has given us and to honor Him as best we know how. If we can do this God will give us knowledge, understanding, and great gifts just like He gave to Daniel. And those gifts could possibly save our lives.
Well that is all for today, hope that you all stay blessed and highly favored!

Matthew Just

Costa Rica

"Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

This past week, May 13-19, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with a group of 10 from Georgia Southern's Christian Campus Fellowship and work with an organization called Strong Missions. Strong Missions was founded by Charlie Strong who is an incredible brother with a powerful vision to reach the people of Costa Rica. To read more about Strong Missions and Charlie's story visit the Strong Missions website.

The first three days of the trip we were working at the local Methodist Church in a town called Carillos near the capitol San Jose. We worked everyday from 8-4 with an hour for lunch at noon. The first two days three artists in the group painted a mural in the park while the rest of us dug out a trench for a side walk to be poured. The final day was primarily mixing and pouring concrete along with finishing up a drainage ditch along the side of the church. We also had the privilege of joining in on a worship service Wednesday night. 

This is the ten of us who went all dressed up about to go to church. 

A mural that Kim, Kayla, and Jessi painted on a wall in the park down the
road from where we were staying. The verse is Psalm 121:1-2.

Digging a drainage ditch at the church.

Digging out the trench for the sidewalk to be poured

All of us after finishing up at the church

The fourth day was a break from manual labor but a bit challenging emotionally. We first visited a teenage mother's home not far from where we were staying. The home was a mission of the Catholic Church that looked after young moms under 18 who were in difficult situations at home. The mission taught several different types of skills including sewing, cosmetology, and pet care. Next we went to a rough are in San Jose where we worked at a church to feed children who typically only get fed once a day. After we all ate, we played with the kids for hours and had a blast! It was an incredible experience for all of us.

A "horse" race with the kids in San Jose.

Playing soccer with the kids.

Look at me! I'm a caballito! (little horse)

The final day we were in Costa Rica was our day off. First we hiked up an active volcano and stood by the crater! After hiking some more we went to a zip-line place in the mountains where we zip-lined down through the canopy. One of the flights was 600 meters long and 100 meters off the ground! After exhausting ourselves we ate at a nice restaurant with fresh natural strawberry juice and then visited the world's largest oxcart.

Me and Alex in front of the volcano crater.

At the old crater which is now a lake!

Hiking through the "cloud forest".

Zip-lining!

World's largest oxcart.

The whole gang plus our two translators/guides Scott and Rebecca
and Ryan an intern for the summer.

Thank you all so much for your love and support for this trip! It was an incredible experience for our team and we all grew very close. Eight of the ten will be back at Georgia Southern CCF next year as leaders so I am very excited about what God will do! There has also been talk about coming back to Costa Rica next year and working with the same group, so that is very exciting as well. God bless!