Daniel 4:27 “Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue.”

Talk about speaking truth to power! If Daniel had any character flaws, lack of courage was not one of them. Nebuchadnezzar was not only an absolute monarch, literally able to order someone killed on the slightest whim, he had a track record of doing exactly that. Stalin comes to mind as a comparison. God gave even such a person as that an opportunity to repent, and he used Daniel to do it. Had Daniel said something like this without Nebuchadnezzar having had a graphic dream, the probability of his being killed in an extremely unpleasant fashion was very high. However, Daniel trusted God above all else, as the whole story of his life illustrates, and he called Nebuchadnezzar to repentance. The world might well be a very different place if more people had exercised Daniel’s kind of courage. When we fear man more than we fear God, we fail to act as God’s agents, and miss opportunities for great blessing.

I have known all my life that people in power are still people, but it can be hard to remember that in the pressure of the moment. It is very common for famous people to have drug/alcohol/emotional problems, and I think a real factor in that is that Christians hesitate to speak the Gospel to such people. How tragic! The greatest person to walk the earth, humanly speaking, still needs a right relationship with God, or their destination is hell, sooner or later. A person who has a healthy, growing fellowship with his Creator is more wealthy than Bill Gates. A person who is flowing with the Holy Spirit exercises more power than any merely human ruler. I need both to remember that and teach it, because we might give intellectual assent to the idea, but it is hard to get it worked into where we are emotionally. I am not to look down on anyone, but I am also not to consider anyone unapproachable. Everyone needs Christ!

Father, thank You for teaching me this early on, and for those to whom You have allowed me to speak. I pray that Your children around the world would grasp who they are in Christ and act as Your agents to all they encounter. May I be bold myself, with Your wisdom and anointing, so that all, high and low, may be given an opportunity to repent and believe, for their salvation and Your glory. Thank You. Praise God!