“Daniel: A Living Sacrifice”
[By Caroline Piner]

God uses people from all walks of life for His plan: good, bad, or in-between. One person who stands out as living a life of sacrifice is Daniel. He was a young teenage boy who had been taken from his home and family into an enemy king’s palace. Young men were chosen by Nebuchadnezzar because their minds could be molded to the Babylonian way of thinking. Daniel, along with Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah spoiled these plans because they had already set their minds to do what God had commanded.

Daniel 1:8 shows the reader how Daniel presented his body and mind to be tested. He had resolved in his mind to neither eat nor drink what the king gave him and he sought a way to make that known to whoever was in charge. Daniel did not want to only silently obey God and fly under the Babylonians’ radar, but asked for this test to be given to him, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. By refusing the king’s food and drink, Daniel showed that he abhorred evil and clung to good (Romans 12:9). God made it known to the officials that Daniel and his friends were pleasing to Him.

In Romans 12:3, Paul calls for a follower of God to be humble in their resolve. Daniel was humble when he was before the king and in his interactions with the eunuchs (Daniel 2:27-28; 1:8, 12-13). In these interactions, he was peaceable (Romans 12:18). Daniel was given the gift of interpreting dreams and of prophesying which he used for God’s purposes (Daniel 1:17; 2; 5), and He gave God all the credit for these gifts (Daniel 2:27-28).

Romans 12:9-10 says that we are to have genuine love and “brotherly affection” toward one another. Daniel made sure that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were well taken care of and were given good jobs (Daniel 2:49). The three of them showed the same resolve as Daniel in that they were willing to be thrown into a fiery furnace instead of committing idolatry (Daniel 3).

Daniel was devoted to prayer (Romans 12:12), praying three times a day with his window open toward Jerusalem (Daniel 6:10; 2 Chronicles 6:38). When men searched for something wrong with him, his devotion to God was all they could find! On threat of death, Daniel never wavered in his faith in God. After he was delivered, he was not angry nor did he try to get revenge; he left that to God (Romans 12:8-9). Daniel chose to “not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good” (Romans 12:21, ESV).

Time and time again, Daniel made himself a living sacrifice and he was rewarded by God for it. In Acts 13:22, David was described as a man after God’s own heart. Similarly, Daniel was described as a man who was “greatly loved” by God (Daniel 9:23; 10:11, ESV). Daniel 9 records a prayer to God on behalf of the people. Verses 20-23 say that God sent his angel, Gabriel, to him with a message that his prayer had been heard and answered. Daniel got a personal message from God because he was “greatly loved.”

We do not have much information about the rest of Daniel’s life, but we have a great example of service to God which we can follow. Like Daniel, we need to be humble, resolved, loving, peaceable, faithful, and never afraid to show the world where our trust lies. God will be with us because we are “greatly loved” by Him.