WE WILL NOT BOW.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to answer you on this point. If it be so, our GOD Whom we serve is able to rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and HE will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if HE does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up!”

Daniel 3:16 AMP

We know the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, the three Jews who had been appointed over the administration of the Province of Babylon, during the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar.
The King had set up a golden image, that everyone was supposed to bow down to and worship. However, the three Jews would do none of that and some Babylonian Astrologers came forward to report them to the King. King Nebuchadnezzar, furious with rage, commanded that they be brought to him and he asked them to worship the golden image, a lack of which would see them thrown into a fired up by seven times fiery furnace.
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego gave an answer that is well captured in our Verses for today, and did not bow to that idol.
Read how GOD saved them in the rest of the Verses in Daniel Chapter 3 and see how HE justified them for not bowing to the golden image.

There are so many idols in our days today, some that we sometimes do not notice. The modern idols are not necessarily the golden or sculptured images in the times of old. An idol is anything that has taken the place of GOD in our lives, anything that we hold in a higher regard, above GOD.
It could be our Careers, our Spouses, our Families, our Ministries, our Gifting and Talents, our Friends, our Employers and Employees, our Spiritual Authorities, our Gadgets, the Online Space, an Iniquity, and yet so much more that we do not realise; people and things we believe that we would never live or survive without.
When we find ourselves not spending time with GOD, not working for GOD, but spending most, if not all, of our time and resources with and on them; when we depend on them for anything, more than we depend on GOD, they are an idol somewhere keeping us busy.
A time has come when we need to submit ourselves back to GOD and put HIM in first place and declare, “We will not bow!”

I know we have Prayers that feel unanswered and it seems as if GOD is taking too long to come to us. It seems as though HE has forgotten us in our dismay and we are running impatient.
But there is this shortcut somewhere that we know will lead us to the top because we can’t wait anymore. It’s a shortcut that GOD will not be pleased about if we take.
It’s time to trust GOD again and some more and declare, “We will not bow!”

There’s a tempting offer that we know well has sin all over it. A concoction of lies, corruption, stealing and all. We know well it will facilitate paying fees for the kids and setting up savings and an inheritance for them, buying a good house and the car of our dreams and be left with more to throw around for whatever. It will surely set us high up the ranks and status, with a confetti of respect and association with it.
We know well that GOD will not be pleased if we partake.
Time to declare, “We will not bow!”

And yet so many other scenarios.

Let us be as sure, as they were, that GOD will save us from the situations that we face. Even though HE does not come through as we had envisioned it, HE has and will come through in the best way we would have never envisioned or imagined it.
I am totally amazed at what Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego went on to say…

“But even if HE does not (rescue us from your hand), let it be known to you, O King, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up!”

Verse 18

Even if the trial has lasted forever and GOD won’t let us out of it now, even if HE takes too long and we feel like we are running out of time, even if GOD doesn’t come through for us with that job, even if everyone around us is way ahead of us in success and they are ridiculing us, even if we have to carry some spare wet wipes in our bags to wipe off the dust and mud from our shoes at the office, while our colleagues come in with their top range vehicles, even if it means staying in the house instead of hanging out because we don’t have that money to spend, even if we have to eat the same food for weeks on end and perhaps go hungry at times, even if our rent runs late and the only option left to get a means to pay will displease GOD, even if we are the only ones left unmarried in our circles of friends; if it will take up our time with GOD, if it will pull us away from HIM, if it is against the Ways and the Will of GOD in our lives, if it will make us denounce HIM; for anything that will dishonour and displease HIM, even if it means to see death because we acknowledge HIM, no matter how shiny and tempting it looks, no matter how foolish we will look in this decision, as committed Christians we say, “We will not bow!”
At some point it will look as though we have lost our minds and lost everything for not bowing, but GOD will justify us for our honour to HIM.

May GOD help us to live a life fully dedicated to HIM. A life where we can fully trust HIM and depend on HIM to deliver at HIS OWN Perfect Time. That we shall not be in a rush to get what we have been praying for, but HE will teach us patience and as we wait, we can hide so far in HIM that the golden image will not distract us.
That we will do nothing that displeases GOD even if it looks as though we are saving ourselves from something.
The very thing we do, thinking will save our lives, could be the very thing that will take away our lives.

For whoever wishes to save his life [in this World] will [eventually] lose it [through death], but whoever loses his life [in this World ] for MY Sake will find it [that is, life with ME for all Eternity].
For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole World [wealth, fame, success], but forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

Matthew 16:25‭-‬26 AMP

PRAYER:

LORD,
Please help me identify the things that I have placed above YOU. Help me put them down and put YOU back to the Highest Place in my life.
Help me plan my time well that I may put aside enough time to spend with YOU. Let my lifestyle always be in Worship to YOU.
Forgive me for the times I have bowed down and worshipped anything that wasn’t YOU, knowingly or unknowingly. Help me live a life that pleases YOU even in the event that I have to wait on YOU for a Prayer that I desperately need answered, however displeasing the waiting is.
Keep me from any temptation and if you allow it to come to me, give me the strength to not bow. Give me the strength to not denounce YOU, whatever the cost.
In JESUS’ Name,
Amen.

More of GOD’s Grace, Love and Light,
Lydia Ndwiga.