Untold Truth About Daniel

Daniel and the other 3 Hebrew boys up until today are good examples for Believers… My focus is not on Daniel alone but on all 4 of them.

Welcome and thank you for coming to read from me today. May God give you understanding and wisdom by His Spirit. Amen.

Daniel 5:11-12 (KJV)
“There is a man in thy kingdom, in whom is the spirit of the holy gods; and in the days of thy father light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods, was found in him; whom the king Nebuchadnezzar thy father, the king, I say, thy father, made master of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans, and soothsayers;
Forasmuch as an excellent spirit, and knowledge, and understanding, interpreting of dreams, and shewing of hard sentences, and dissolving of doubts, were found in the same Daniel, whom the king named Belteshazzar: now let Daniel be called, and he will shew the interpretation.”

Although this statement was made about Daniel, the other 3 Hebrew boys; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, all had the excellent spirit as well.

You may say the Bible didn’t say the other boys saw visions and interpreted dreams and all that, so why do I think they had an excellent spirit? That’s the mistake we make, we think the excellent spirit gives visions and interpretation of dreams… No! And we’ll look further into that.

The second reason which is actually priority is that the scriptures say in Daniel chapter 1 that all 3 had this spirit of wisdom and understanding but only Daniel was given the ability to interprete dreams and visions, yet even this was not the excellent spirit because we see the Queen mother separating the qualities in our text above. These four had an excellent spirit in them hence bringing them to the point of understanding and wisdom in learning and life.

Sadly, the excellent spirit as being taught now is more of an excellent spirit of competition.

Listen to me, the 4 Hebrew boys did not have the spirit of competition. They were not in competition with other Hebrew boys who were being trained for the kings service. No!!! This is an untold truth, that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not striving to be the best. That is not what the excellent spirit is… That’s not why you have the excellent spirit.

Contrary to popular belief, Daniel and his other friends were not always at the helm of affairs despite the fact that they were found ten times better than their peers.

You may ask how I know this. Did you notice that when the king had his dream and called all his wise men and interpreters and astrologers and diviners, the boys were not called. They only found out what was going on when the executioners came to carry them to be executed on the King’s orders.

Did you also notice that even at this point the Queen mother had to introduce Daniel to the king?

I think this is going to end up being a series of 2 or 3 lessons. So let’s take it that today’s lesson is that the excellent spirit is not a spirit of competition.

The excellent spirit is not trying to make you better than your neighbor. It is not trying to make your denomination more presentable than the denomination next door.

I heard a Pastor teach once on the spirit of excellence and I couldn’t believe my ears. For a moment I thought I was in a business school. He confidently said that as a Pastor and a church, they are in competition with other churches and the spirit of excellence makes him and the church preferred over the other churches (note that he also recognized that these churches preach the word of God).

The spirit of excellence doesn’t make you the preferred salesperson. It doesn’t make you a better vendor. The spirit of excellence is not about your surroundings or neighbors.

Oh my goodness!! It is not about achieving.

Listen! Let me let you know, that as a believer, business or not, you are not and should not be in competition with anybody.

Again, hear it, the spirit of excellence is not and should not be presented and represented as the spirit of competition.

He’s not there to make your product sell better.

Summary, the spirit of excellence is not present for your material gain. God doesn’t give him to you for vain gathering and vain pursuit. You don’t have him so you can be called the best choir in town. It’s not so that you can be the head or you can be above everyone in position.

Hear this! you can have the spirit of excellence and end up in the Lion’s den. You can have the spirit of excellence and end up in the fiery furnace. You can have an excellent spirit and end up in Potiphar’s prison without a hope of coming out.

What really then is the excellent spirit? I’ll write to you in this direction next week by God’s grace.

Thank you for reading from me today. God bless you. Share willingly.

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