[Friday's Devotional] - We have turned away from your commands and laws

So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting, and in sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the LORD my God and confessed:
"Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant of love with those who love him and keep his commandments, we have sinned and done wrong. We have been wicked and have rebelled; we have turned away from your commands and laws. We have not listened to your servants the prophets, who spoke in your name to our kings, our princes and our ancestors, and to all the people of the land.
Daniel 8: 3-6 [NIV]

Daniel has been shown a vision of the end of time and the last battle in Chapter 8. This has had a very traumatic effect on him. In the start of this chapter, Daniel has understood that Jerusalem's desolation and the exile will continue for a long time, namely seventy years. Daniel is not the sort of God-fearing man who just shrugs his shoulders and says 'OK, whatever God decides'. He is more passionate than that. His response to this news is not apathy, but a prayer for mercy on Jerusalem and on his people. Daniel clearly believes that God is able to save.

Notice how Daniel begins his petition for Jerusalem. He doesn't just pile in with a plea for God to change his mind. He doesn't say the equivalent of 'Go on God, let us off'. No. He begins his prayer with an acknowledgement of who God is. He knows that God is perfect and cannot ignore the sins of his people. He also counts himself among the sinners of Israel. Israel had been on the slide for a long time before the exile finally happened. Daniel was a God-fearing man who was not to blame for the disaster that overtook Israel. Still, he is quite able to identify himself with the people of Israel and therefore part of a sinful nation. It is a belief in collective responsibility that we have lost, but is quite biblical (see Isaiah 6:5 for one example). This belief in confessing our national sin and asking for God's mercy on our nation is being rediscovered by the church. Judging by the state of our nation and Europe, I would say it was about time.

John Martin-Jones

Read the Bible in a year: Proverbs 29:10-18, Daniel 8:15-9:19, 1 John2:28-3:10