Reading
SAA Notes
This is one of the great prayers of the Bible. It involves praise, acknowledgment of God’s righteousness and mercy, confession and petition. God answers Daniel’s prayer immediately. The term Anointed One (v. 25) is literally Messiah or Christ.
SJA Notes
* God of mercy, please forgive us today according to Your great mercy.
“To you, O Lord, belongs righteousness, but to us open shame,”
Why is Daniel speaking of shame?
“To us, O LORD, belongs open shame, to our kings, to our princes, and to our fathers, because we have sinned against you.”
If this was true for Israel then, is it true for us today, that we have sinned against the Lord?
Yes.
God’s word is clear. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3).
What then should our attitude be?
“For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.”
It is God’s mercy that saves us – nothing of our own!
Our righteous acts are as filthy rages (not very righteous at all).
The only righteousness a believer has comes from our King, the one who stood in our place, the Lord Jesus.
So we have shame that belongs to us.
But it is not shame without hope!
“At the beginning of your pleas for mercy a word went out, and I have come to tell it to you, for you are greatly loved.”
YOU ARE GREATLY LOVED.
This is for us, us dear brothers and sisters together on this road to glory.
WE ARE GREATLY LOVED.
God loved us so much, from before the foundation of the world, that He sent Himself in the Person of the Son to become curse and shame for us, that we might have blessing.
What love this is!
* Father God,
Thank You that despite the shame of our sin – You love us.
Thank YOU that we can have the righteousness of the RIGHT MAN, Jesus Christ, our King.
Thank You that in Jesus we are greatly loved.
Amen.