🌿BREATHE TRUTH🌿
The chief of staff renamed them with these Babylonian names:
Daniel was called Belteshazzar. Hananiah was called Shadrach, Mischael was called Meshach. Azariah was called Abednego. —Daniel 1:7
🌿LIVE THE REAL TRUTH🌿
After Daniel and his friends were exiled to Babylon, their captors changed their names to Babylonian ones.
For secular reasons. To accelerate their forced inclusion into their culture. To acclimate them into their new citizenship. To assimilate them of their new customs.
An annihilation of an old way of life and an absorption into a new one.
For faith reasons. To disconnect them from their faith background. To disengage them from their faith foundation. To dilute their faith identity.
Deliberate tactics utilized to displace God.
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In the 500s B.C., Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego were young teenagers. But they experienced what our children are witnessing today. A well-planned concerted effort by the world around them to redefine their relationship with God and whether or not it should even exist.
Our faith history consists of our faith background, faith foundation, and faith identity. The assault against our children is really an attack on their faith history.
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Faith Background. The setting and scenery of our faith upbringing. The surrounding framework of what is cumulatively taught and caught in our formative years. A summation of our faith development at home, in church, and outside. How we grow.
Faith Foundation. The cornerstone and core constituents of what we believe. The underlying moral principles that undergirds our actions and the underpinning premises that our spiritual walk consists of. Prayer. The word of God. Discipleship. Fellowship. What grows us.
Faith Identity. The discerning distinctiveness of who we are in Christ. The distinguishing features of what sets us apart in our belief. Our ultimate goal is to have God’s character reflected in our character. The singular fruits that we bear for His glory. What grows from us.
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We are the hands and feet to those who have never met the Gospel. We are the eyes and ears to those who have never seen or heard of the Gospel. We are the branches filled with fruit rooted in Christ to those who have never tasted the Gospel. We carry with us in our faith history the message of the Gospel wherever we go.
In doing so, we become moving targets in the world’s agenda to change our faith history.
Young Daniel, Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego encountered efforts to rewrite their faith history. So will your children.
The world surrounding them is premeditatively planning to rewrite their faith history.
Prepare yourself and your children. Whoever becomes the author of your children’s faith history determines their earthly present and their eternal future.
The first step in protecting their faith history begins with you, the parents. How is your faith history? Are your fruits sparse and sporadic or copious and consistent?
Do kingdom business with God and ensure your faith identity, faith background, and faith foundation is fruitfully abundant, fiercely alive, and firmly anchored in the Real Truth.
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Copyright 2019