The Victory by Means of Praise

In all situations we can achieve victory

The prophet Daniel brings a very important fact in chapter 3 of his book and I believe that God wants to speak to us through this text today. He narrates that the king of Babylon Nebuchadnezzar had a huge gold statue built 30 meters high by 3 meters in diameter, and decreed that all the inhabitants of the kingdom should bow down and worship when his men blow the trumpets and and play the musical instruments.They did do this. But it came to their ears that three young Jews – called Sidrac, Misac, and Abdénago (cf. Daniel 3, 16ff) – were not obeying his orders. Furious, he sent for the three boys and threatened them that if they did not worship the statue, they would be thrown into the furnace of fire and burned to death, and he insulted them by asking, “Who is the God who will deliver you out of my hand? “(V.15)

_{Photo: Maria Andréa / cancaonova.com}

The response of the three young men was this: “We do not need to respond to this order. There is our God whom we worship, He can deliver us from the burning furnace, saving us from your hand. But even if this does not happen, know, O king, that we will not worship your god, nor will we worship the golden statue built by you, O king “(v. 16-18).

Seek a maturity of faith

Here is the secret of the heart of these three young men: “But even if this does not happen, we will not worship your god …” In other words, even if the Lord does not deliver us, we will not betray Him, we will remain faithful, we will die if need be, but we will not go back! That is unconditional love for God, it is faithfulness to every test. What a maturity of faith!

This also has to happen to us. We must reach this maturity and this unconditional love to the point of saying: “Even if nothing changes in my life, even if I am not healed, even if it does not happen, I will remain faithful to the Lord! I will not deny it! I will not give up! Even if my prayer does not seem to work, I will not stop praying, I will remain faithful to the Lord! “

The king was furious and had the three of them tied, put even more fuel in the fire, and threw them in.They fell praising God, giving their testimony of faith. And something marvelous happened: “The three of them walked among the flames, singing hymns to God and praising the Lord” (verse 24). The Word of God goes on to describe that “the Angel of the Lord came down to Azariah and his companions in the furnace. He pushed the flames out of the furnace and made a damp, refreshing wind in the middle of the furnace. The fire did not strike them nor cause them any trouble “(v. 49).

What strikes me is that they did not deny the power of God; on the contrary, they asserted with all force that He had the power to deliver them from that terrible situation. But they went one step further, and here is the teaching for us, they made it clear that their fidelity to God was not conditional on whether He would deliver them or not! Regardless, they decided to remain faithful to the Lord. In a world as materialistic as ours, with so many offers and proposals to negotiate with God, with attempts even to force Him to do what we want or to buy Him with vows, promises and the like, the testimony of these three boys is very strong.

Hearts in love with God win the victory

I feel with this biblical passage a strong invitation from the Lord that we first make a life review of our dispositions of faith. And then, may we ask for this passionate heart, this mature faith , this faithful and gratuitous attitude toward Him.

“The victory comes by praise!” And that is exactly what we see in this biblical text. The praise that flowed from these convicted hearts in God, in love with the Lord and faithful to Him unconditionally, conquered from the Lord the deliverance from the furnace, liberation from the tyranny of Nebuchadnezzar. And the fruit of this fidelity was the conversion of the king himself, who recognized the power of God and also came to seek Him.

I firmly believe that from this inner change, from this change of heart and from our attitude toward situations and tribulations, if we have this heart totally trusting in God, and above all, unconditional in fidelity to Him, much will begin to change in our life, there will be no “furnace” capable of harming us, there will not be enough tyranny to arrest us, there will be no impossible situation. We will see the glory of God!

May the Lord grant us this conversion today!

God bless you!

By Father Clóvis Andrade de Melo
Missionary of the Canção Nova Community