This week, Sunday is the final day of the Gardeners of the Galaxy program. Service will be delivered online with some community engagement activities using Kahoot.it. All families and community members are encouraged to participate in the live online service from 9am.

When Christians face opposition and personal failure, they can always embrace protection and comfort from our gracious Lord

This week we explore if life is an entitlement or a gift.

God’s answer to the death of exile will be gloriously fulfilled in a future resurrection of God’s people, first in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who entered into the curse of death, so we too could rise to newness of life. 

God shows Daniel that the return to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon and the 200 golden years that were to follow under the generous rule of the Medes and Persians was not the future for God’s people to look forward to (it would be shattered by Alexander the Great’s conquests and the evil rule of King Antiochus IV). What Daniel could not yet see was how God was going to prepare the best possible future for his people in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. 

We can take heart when we see that the history of our world is a beastly procession of violent, oppressive, crushing kingdoms, because Jesus the Son of Man has been given authority over history and in him we receive an everlasting kingdom that will not pass away.

In continuing to live a faithful life Daniel, just like Jesus, took his stand against unjust forces by getting on his knees in prayer. And Daniel, just like Jesus, is resurrected from the pit of death & exile.

Resist the ways our world conforms us towards excessive individualism – using God’s gifts for self-seeking pleasure, and giving ourselves over to the glitter and glory of the world’s treasures. Honour God who holds our life in his hands. 

This Sunday we will be deviating from Daniel for a week to have Dave Thurston preach on Romans 8:31 -39 – drawing our attention to the sovereign and loving God who is in control of everything, and in whom we trust in hard times.
As Josiah is preaching week 4, we will link his talk to this week’s post sometime Sunday evening.

The unwavering faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego foreshadows Jesus’ commitment to stay faithful to God even to death, therefore when
faced with persecution for faithfulness to God, we can also stand firm in the assurance that we have this eternal salvation in him.