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All like Daniel

April 26,  2009  - Ian

Many of us at All Saints are foreigners; people from another land but are in Indonesia to work and live for a short time (or maybe a long time). In the Bible book of Daniel we find 4 people who are living in a strange and wonderful land but are challenged at various times in how they live out their faith in God. The book of Daniel is a book that is helpful for all of us as we live in a strange and wonderful land where there will be times when it will be important to live like everyone else. And yet there will also be times when we need to live differently.

At what points in your life are you going to become all things to all Indonesians? Dress? Language? Food? Paying taxes? At what points in your life are you going to live differently to others for the honour of Christ? Talking about Jesus? Defending Jesus? Being sexually pure? Avoiding bribery and corruption?

Many of us at All Saints are Indonesian citizens and so as far as Indonesia is concerned we are not aliens or foreigners. But as 1 Peter 2:11 reminds us, that we as Christians we are all like Daniel and his three friends in Babylon, we all live in a strange and foreign land where it will be appropriate to compromise and so to be like everyone else and times when we need to stand apart from the local culture to say that we have another home, another place where we are citizens, another king and another Kingdom.

Live in the tension between compromise and difference and bring honour to Christ.

Ian