Be Real Together:
Take a few minutes to catch up, tell stories, and laugh together. Trust and friendship take time to build. If you’re launching a new DNA, one person should tell their story — what do we need to know about you? Next week, have another person in your DNA share their story.
Read Together: Daniel 3
Grow Together: Observe and Apply
1. THE KING - A GOD OF HIS OWN CREATION
In Daniel 2, King Nebuchadnezzar is given a dream by God telling him that his reign as king will come to an end and his empire will fall. King Nebuchadnezzar does not receive this dream well or heed the warning, which we read about in Daniel 3.
The king builds a gold statue of himself, as an act of rebellion, and commands his subjects to worship it. Nebuchadnezzar so strongly convinced himself of his own power that when three Hebrew men did not worhsip his statue he threatened to kill them and said this, “Who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”
Remember a time when God spoke vision and direction for your life to you, or maybe even a warning, and you still chose to go against God. How did this affect your relationship with him? What did you learn about how much pride affects our relationship with God?
2. THE FAITHFUL THREE (SHADRACH, MESHACH, & ABEDNEGO)
Although King Nebuchadnezzar stripped Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of their Hebrew names (Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) and named them after gods from his own religion, these men knew their real identities. This was key to them standing their ground against King Nebuchadnezzar even after he told them he would kill them for failing to worship his statue.
Instead of bowing down, they stood tall. Instead of bending and breaking under the pressure of their current culture, they held fast to their God and their faith. Rather than being bound by pride and sin, they walked freely in faith despite also walking in the firey furnace.
Can you recall a time when it felt as though others had thrown you into the fire, but God was with you helping you walk in faith? How did that strengthen your relationship with him?
3. FAITHFUL THROUGH THE FIRE
When we go through trials (external circumstances that come against us) we are being given opportunities to let our faith be strengthened into something more resolute.
Oswald Chambers said, “Faith by its very nature must be tested and tried. And the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God’s character must be proven as trustworthy in our own minds.”
If we don’t get this down, then trials will consistenly feel like times where God is abandoning us rather than walking with us in the fire.
Do you count God as trustworthy, or is this question still up for debate in your mind? A way to check this is by determining whether or not you are rebellious in trying times or whether you stand firm in your belief of God’s faithfulness.
Pray Together:
Thank you, Father, for your faithfulness.
Thank you for sending Jesus to be tempted, tested, and tried in the same ways we are.
Thank you for being a God who is not far off, but walks with us in the fires of life.
Help us to remember the times you have been faithful to us and to remember that you are trustworthy.
In Jesus’ name we pray, AMEN.