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About Jesus Steve Sweetman
"Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, replied to the King, O Nebuchadnezzar...if we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and He will rescue us from your hand O King. But even if He does not, we want you to know O King, we will not serve your gods..." - Dianial 3:16-18 This scripture in my opinion is one of the most important passages in the Bible. It is an example of how we should think and live as Christians. The concept of the "bottom line" in financial circles today is key to success. The point of this verse is the bottom line of our faith. These three men were faced with a death and life situation. If they worshiped the King's idle they could be free to live. If they did not worship the idle they would die. As a response to this situation they told the King that they would never bow down to his idle. They said their God was able to deliver them from the furnace of fire, but even if He didn't save them they would still believe in Him and not worship any other god. In relation to this passage of scripture I often think of Stephen in the book of Acts. He was not in a furnace of fire but he was in a storm of stones. With stones and rocks hurling their way at him, he looked up into heaven and saw the Lord. Did the Lord save Stephen as He did those three Jewish men? He stood beside the men in the fire and those outside could see that there were four men in the furnace, not three. In Stephen's case He stood in heaven beckoning Him home. The Lord did save Stephen, yet in a different way. He brought him home to a more glorious way of life. In both cases this point is made. All four men would believe, and trust in their God no matter what happened, whether they lived or died. Their trust went far beyond their circumstances. Their trust went beyond the questions that defied an answer, the why's in life. That is to say, if God is God, why does He allow the death of a child, or why does He allow starvation, or why, why, why...? Where does our trust in God put us? Do we believe no matter what? In the face of unanswerable questions, grief, misery or even death itself, can we say, 'even if He does not deliver, or answer, we will still trust Him explicitly". What kind of trust is untested trust anyway? How do we know if we trust if all is well? Is this not the bottom line to our faith? Will we believe if God doesn't come through as we expect Him to?
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