It was just a trailer for a video game. But to me it was something more. The music came from one of my favorite pieces ever. The visuals and narration portrayed the striving of humanity to better itself.
The striking last lines of the video:
“There’s no end to our imagination and no limit to civilization.”
It’s a compelling vision for humanity. It’s also incomplete. The story of mankind needs a hero, and that hero can only be God himself.
Which Bible heroes never failed? Daniel stands out.
Not once does the Bible record him committing an error or sin. No man was perfect except Jesus, but Daniel is a rare treasure among the faithful heroes.
The key to Daniel’s success was his committed reliance on the Lord, especially as seen through his consistent prayer life. He always considered God’s will.
For people to see the Lord—that’s my passion. Our most pressing need is to see and understand God.
When we know what God is like and why he is good, that’s when we’ll have:
How do we see what God is like? We look to divinely inspired Scripture to see his words and deeds.
I don’t feel like praying. I almost never do.
This used to slow me down, but here are some principles that have greatly helped.
I have an aversion to changes of context. If I’m doing chores around the house, I want to keep doing them. If I’m reading or typing at my computer, I want to keep doing that. When it’s time to go to bed, I don’t want to. And when it’s time to get out of bed I don’t want to. It takes emotional energy to shift your context, to drop an activity, and to orient yourself to a new one.
For the good, the bad, and the uncomfortable, go to the Old Testament. Because it’s largely a narrative, the Old Testament shows cause and effect—of every kind. You can trust it to tell the juicy parts.
I want to show you some match-ups I discovered. It’s a set of revealing comparisons of those who got it right and those who didn’t.
1. Why holiness matters.
2. How people become holy.
I’ll share these principles at the end. But see if you can find them yourself in the following comparisons:
