Daily Light - March 29, 2011

Daily Light from the Lighthouse

"You have been weighed in the balances, and found wanting."

Daniel 5:27

When God speaks, there is truly power in His voice. It caused all of creation to come into being, and it caused men to fall on their faces. We see the results of His voice throughout the Bible. There are only a few times, however, that we see Him write. When a woman was caught in adultery and brought to Jesus, He said very little, but He spent most of the time writing in the sand. What He wrote we are not sure of, but the reaction to it was astounding.

On this occasion in the book of Daniel, the king and all of his entourage are enjoying themselves immensely. They have brought in the gold and silver vessels that had been consecrated for the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem and began to worship the gods of gold and silver. When the party had reached its lustful and pagan peak, God moved in. A hand appeared and wrote an inscription on the wall. Although they could not discern its saying right away, it had an effect on them none the less. The Scriptures tell us that Belshazzar's knees literally began to knock against each other. God had his full attention! The prophecy of the words told Belshazzar that his days as king were numbered and the kingdom would be given to another. Why?

It is interesting to see the idea that God weighs our lives in the balance of His righteousness. There is clearly a holy standard by which God measures all things. We often like to think that our standard of righteousness is good enough, but how does our standard compare to His? Any one that deals with measurements will tell you that it is impossible to accurately measure something with two different standards. There must be one established standard by which all other things will compare. Our standard of righteousness should be Jesus Christ. Our striving should be to live according to the example which He left for us. Of course, none of us are righteous in ourselves and that is clearly taught in Scripture. That is why each of us must be cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. However, when we come to Him, the Bible says that we are new creatures, and we are now expected to live by a different standard. We can no longer compare ourselves with the world or even what we once were. We must now live in the light of Jesus Christ always desiring to live according to His righteousness.

May you be found to like Christ today!