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Here at the Lord\u2019s table, we celebrate Jesus\u2019 victory on the cross, when he won forgiveness for our sin.\u00a0\u00a0To look at this further, please think for a moment of what you remember of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who features in the book of Daniel.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Chapter 3 tells of three young Israelites \u2013 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego \u2013 who refused to bow down to worship a golden idol.\u00a0\u00a0King Nebuchadnezzar was furious with them and ordered their death in a fiery furnace, so hot that it killed the soldiers who took them up to the furnace.\u00a0\u00a0Yet the three Israelites were protected by an angel of God and were not harmed.<\/p>\n
That was my memory of King Nebuchadnezzar.<\/p>\n
So, I was very surprised when reading a Christian book to see him praised as a model example for us all to follow!<\/p>\n
But I found he was the first to see the miracle of the three men walking unharmed in the furnace.\u00a0 He immediately understood and repented of what he had done, and praised God.\u00a0\u00a0He was given the honour of writing a chapter of the bible; chapter 4 of Daniel is his proclamation of the greatness of God to his entire kingdom.\u00a0\u00a0And that is the last of what we are told about him.<\/p>\n
\u00a0Yet my memory, and that of people I have spoken to, was of the raging king who ordered the three Israelites into the fiery furnace.<\/p>\n
This shows that in that part of us which is our fallen human nature, we remember the sins of people, while God sees their repentance and their turning to him.\u00a0\u00a0With our limited vision we may be tempted to think we have sin which is unforgiveable, which stops us from being acceptable to God.\u00a0\u00a0But that is to doubt the power of Jesus victory on the cross, and if we hold onto our sin it will weigh us down and stop us from doing God\u2019s will, as we try to justify our deeds.<\/p>\n
To trust in Jesus means to truly repent before God, and to allow His Spirit to convince us of the forgiveness that Jesus has won for us; and with that personal assurance of forgiveness through Jesus, we are set free to follow Him, as he leads us away from sin along his path for us.<\/p>\n
And as we live in the joy of God\u2019s forgiveness, we are also freed to take delight in seeing others repent and receive His forgiveness, especially those who have wronged us. So, forgiving others from the heart is yet another gift from God.<\/p>\n
At our Lord\u2019s table now, we follow the model example of King Nebuchadnezzar, as we repent of our sin, and witness to God\u2019s greatest miracle of all \u2013 of Jesus victory on the cross.\u00a0\u00a0All are welcome to this meal, all you need is a hunger for God\u2019s forgiveness, which is freely given to you through Jesus.<\/p>\n
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Here at the Lord\u2019s table, we celebrate Jesus\u2019 victory on the cross, when he won forgiveness for our sin.\u00a0\u00a0To look at this further, please think for a moment of what you remember of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, who features in the book of Daniel. \u00a0Chapter 3 tells of three young Israelites \u2013 Shadrach, Meshach, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26740,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26741","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reflections"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26741","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26741"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26745,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26741\/revisions\/26745"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26740"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/questionsandbelief.org\/sw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}