Understanding the Awesome Power of God, and How He Will Use it to Our Benefit if We are Doing His Will!

23 Sep 2026 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Today’s Scrip-Bit   23 September 2026   Daniel 6:16b.

Daniel 6:16b.         Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.

And it’s another Wednesday, a sunny but somewhat cool and windy day, and let’s hope we all catch our second wind. I certainly had to catch mine because I went out to my Wednesday church group, then ran a couple of errands afterwards, so by the time I came home I was tired and had to rest for a spell. Then by the time I came downstairs to begin writing the Bit, the doorbell wrang, and since the Duchess was out, I had to go upstairs and answer it. Then by the time I came back down the phone wrang, but I ignored it. 

Now that’s my excuse for being on a late bus today. I’ve noticed though that these days, I am almost always on a late bus, and I don’t like it.  And I wonder why? Is it me, just getting up later than usual, then spinning around too much before I come downstairs? Or am I just being too distracted by other stuff that’s not helping my cause? So let’s see if we can’t do better in the future nuh. (smile)

And the Good Library opened today at the book of Daniel, where the other leaders of Babylon were jealous of Daniel because the king favoured him, and they decided to plot against him. The Bible tells us: ‘Then the presidents and princes (overseers and provincial governors) sought to find occasion (some charge) against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion (no charge) nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error of fault found in him.’ (Dan. 6:4) Oh my brethren, can that be said about us; that there was no fault or charge liable against us for doing our work. Let’s hope so.

The Bible continues: ‘Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion (fault, charge) against this  Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.’ (Dan. 6:5) Now that’s the way we ought to be; the only way anyone should find fault against us is concerning our God. Thus they set out to trap Daniel by talking king Darius into establishing a royal statute and making a decree that ‘whosoever shall ask (make) a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.’ (Dan. 6:7) And Darius unaware of their plot, signs such a decree.

But Daniel being the god-fearing man he was, did not worry about their scheme and went ahead praying from his window toward Jerusalem, three times a day like he usually did. And when they found him, they carried the news to the king, entreating him to send Daniel to the lions den because he regarded not the king’s petition and still prayed three times a day. Only then did the king wake up to their plot. The Bible relates: ‘Then the king, when he heard these words, was sore (greatly) displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him: and he laboured (strived) till the going down of the sun to deliver him’ (Dan. 6:14)

But the jealous courtiers gave him no chance whatsoever to help Daniel, they kept calling for him to be thrown into lion’s den as the decree determined. Finally, the king had no choice but to have Daniel thrown into the den of lions. However, before the king did that, he made this very interesting comment to Daniel. ‘Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, he will deliver thee.’ (Dan. 6:16b)

Now why would a heathen king say that to a Christian believer? Possibly because of all the stuff he’d heard about Daniel, like he could decipher visons, and the fine way in which he executed his duties. And that’s the way the Lord likes to have people thing about us. It’s like Jesus advises in the Sermon on the Mount. ‘Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.’ (Matt. 5:16) Yes friends when we go about our business with diligence and excellence, others note it and consider the possibilities of our God, just like the king did with Daniel.

And after they had shut Daniel securely in the lions den; ‘The king went to his palace, and passed (spent) the night fasting: neither were instruments of music (musicians) brought before him: and his sleep went (fled) from him.’ (Dan. 6:18) That’s how concerned he was about throwing Daniel into the Lion’s den. ‘Then the king arose very early in the morning, and went in haste unto the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried with a lamentable (pained) voice unto Daniel: and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?

Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live for ever. My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency (innocence) was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt (wrong). Then was the king exceedingly glad for him, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he believed in his God. And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them (overpowered them), and brake all their bones in pieces or (before they) ever came at the bottom of the den.’ (6:19-24)

Ah mih people, that’s the powerful kind of God we serve, and what He can and will do if we’re found to be worthy of His signs and wonders. But it all stems from the way we behave in front of the unbelievers, if our behaviour gives God glory or not. So, since we never know when we’ll need a miracle, let’s keep on doing our best nuh, so if and when that time comes, the Lord doesn’t hesitate to perform it to our benefit. Now let’s go home declaring our Wednesday Wail, telling the whole world about our wonderful position in Christ Jesus.

As one strong and sincere voice: ‘Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday: I’m so glad to be alive on this Wednesday! Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday: Thank God the breath of life is still flowing through me on this Wednesday! I am halfway home. My hands are fixed securely on the plough, and I’m not turning back. I’m not looking back at the past, not focusing on what has gone before. But my eyes are fixed straight ahead; straight ahead to a glorious future with Jesus. Glory Hallelujah!’ 

And if we endure to the very end with Jesus, then we’re assured of an even more glorious future than we can ask or imagine. So let’s endure to the end nuh, so that we can share that glorious future together! Much LOVE!

…actions speak louder than words…that’s why we must do more than we talk…

Hear our podcast at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/randy-obrien   

Today’s Scrip-Bit 28 July 2017 Psalm 55:16.

28 Jul 2017 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Psalm 55:16.   As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me.

‘Alive! Still alive! Still alive and kicking! Give God the glory!’ Yeh friends, the ole fella is still alive and kicking! What an honour! 

That means God still has some plan for me to accomplish. And though I might not be kicking as healthily and actively as I’d like, once I’m alive, I have hope that things can get better. But if I’m not alive, things can’t get any better here on earth. (smile) 

So let’s praise our wonderful God and give Him much, much thanks for everyday we open our eyes to a bright new morning with Jesus the focus of our lives. Glory to God! 

So it’s Friday and the workingman is overjoyed at his short stint of upcoming freedom, and understandably shouts: ‘TGIF! Thank God is Friday mih breddren! No more labour till Monday! We going to laugh and sing and party like there was no tomorrow…

For who knows if there’ll be a tomorrow anyway! So let’s party up a storm and enjoy the fruits of we labour nuh like Cousin Sol, the wisest man ever, advised. Thank God for Fridays and the weekend oui!’  

And Cousin Sol did advise that my friends, but I don’t think he meant for us to go overboard with it, as the workingman seems to advocate. I believe he would have liked to see some boundaries, boundaries that did not allow the enemy to get into our lives. 

He’d much prefer a statement along the lines of our Friday Chant, which advocates a tad more circumspection. So let’s give voice to our Friday Chant nuh…declare it like we truly mean it. ‘Oh Lord, thanks for getting me safely through another week of work! It hasn’t been easy, but with your generous help, I made it through. 

Now, please help me to get sufficient fun, fellowship, rest and relaxation in these two short days off, so that I can be renewed and refreshed in soul, body and mind, to go back out and do it all over again next week, furthering your glorious kingdom with each step I take. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen!’ 

Ah mih people, I guess that’s what you’d call erring on the safe side (smile). But there is an enormous benefit to it; spending more time with God and less with the enemy! And anytime we can do that, we’re winning the battle of life. 

That brings us to our Bit; the proclamation of Bruh David from Psalm 55 – the cry against deceitful friends. In the midst of it all, he faithfully and boldly declares: ‘As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me.’ 

What awesome faith my brethren! How many of us boldly make such declarations when the trials and tribulations of life are coming against us eh? Not as many as should, I’d dare to say. 

When times are good, we talk a good talk, but when they get rough, the exact time when we desperately need God, too many of us forget Him, give up hope and allow the ever-lurking enemy to confuffle us even further. That’s foolish, unproductive and ungodly behaviour my fellow believers, which severely detracts from our faith walk. 

Instead, we should be declaring powerful acclamations like Bruh David did after our Bit: ‘Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.’ (Psalm 55:17) Yeh precious people of God, when our prayers are constantly being floated up to heaven, we are assured of more assurance in our faith walk. (smile) 

That’s why Bruh Paul told the Thessalonians: ‘Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.’ (1 Thess.5:16-18) And the scholars tell us that ‘the constant attitude of prayer, mentioned in verse 17, will help the believer to maintain gratitude (even) in the face of adversity.’ 

What more can we ask eh friends? Not a whole lot. To be grateful in the rough times is the mark of a true believer. And Bruh Paul also exhorted Timothy to prayer when he wrote. ‘I will therefore that men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.’ (1 Tim.2:8) 

So again we see that prayer should not only be constant, but it can be done anywhere, preferably ‘with a pure life without disputes.’ 

And we won’t forget to mention Jesus’ advice on the subject. ‘And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint (lose heart).’ (Luke 18:1) 

And the scholars explain that verse thus. ’18:1. To faint means to “lose heart.” Precisely when tempted to give up, men ought to be strong in their resolve to pray.’ Exactly the message I’ve been trying to covey my fellow believers. 

Now we’ll close with a powerful example of what we’re talking about. It’s about Daniel, when his enemies plotted against him and had the king sign a law that forbade anyone to ‘ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save (except) of thee O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.’ (Dan.6:7b). 

They knew that the only way they could get to Daniel was through his God. But Daniel was not perturbed. The Good Book tells us: ‘Now when Daniel knew that the writing (written decree) was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a (that) day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime (had been doing all along). 

Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God.’ (Dan.6:10-11) 

And we all know the story how Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den but the Lord stopped them from harming him. 

Oh friends, examples like Daniel have been placed in the Word to encourage and uplift us, so that we too can take courage in the efficacy of prayer. Please, let’s use them productively nuh, like our caring and compassionate God intended. Much LOVE!

…to pray…and yet to pray…and still yet to pray…that is the answer…

 

Today’s Scrip-Bit 14 January 2014 Psalm 5:3

14 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Psalm 5:3.    My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.
 
Oh For the good old days eh! And you’re no doubt wondering what caused that soulful lament for those bye-gone days?
 
Well, it’s because yesterday afternoon, while I was trying to catch up on some rest, for I’m not over whatever bug’s been bugging me for the last ten days. But I am getting better… Thank the Lord I’m getting better! Though not as quickly as I’d like.
 
Anyway, out of the blue, I head this imperative call: ‘Randolph, come here!’ Chuh! I sighed at being disturbed, while wondering what was wrong now. The Duchess is one of the few people who call me Randolph, and anytime I hear that commanding voice, it automatically raises my hackles. (smile)
 
But as a dutiful husband, I got up and went downstairs, only to find the Duchess standing in front of the opened freezer door of the fridge, watching water come pouring out.
 
Oh, she’d already done what she could; put some towels on the ground to sop up the water, taken out the ice-maker, and turned off the water. But the residue in there kept coming out for a couple more minutes.
 
She was obviously not thrilled, because as usual, she was trying to do several things at the same time. It appears that she had just come from outside talking to the man who was cleaning up the trees from the ice storm damage, and found the undesirable situation.
 
By the way, she had him cut down the wasp (jack spaniard) nest that had been hanging so blithely from the tree limb outside my kitchen window. Aww! Now I don’t have anything to look at and chuckle about when I look out there.
 
But my brethren, you would certainly have been proud of the ole fella, for I responded in a very calm and Christian manner. Wow! What maturity! (smile) I allowed her to go and continue her other chores, while I simply did what I could to clean up the resultant mess.
 
To tell the truth, I was even surprised at how calmly I handled the situation. I guess the Holy Spirit did a magnificent job in me. And who says He doesn’t work hard eh!
 
The long and short of the story is that the freezer section contains an automatic icemaker that provides either crushed or cubed ice, along with a waterspout. However the icemaker is always causing problems, either not making ice or making too much ice.
 
Just a couple weeks ago, it malfunctioned again, that time causing a terrible ice build up in the freezer. Everything in there was so caked with ice that we had problems taking them out. A service man came, obviously at an exorbitant service charge, but apparently all he did was de-ice the freezer, not fix the problem that had caused it in the first place.
 
Now yesterday the water section acted up. My contention is that the older fridges with just a small freezer section, where you put your ice trays to make ice, never caused those problems. But these fanciful, cheaply made gadgets with so many features constantly cause problems.
 
And this is supposed to be a top of the line Maytag appliance, whose advertisement wrongly boasted about the Maytag repairman never having anything to do because their products were so good. Hogwash! I won’t even get into the problems we’ve had with a Maytag stove.
 
Hn! The amount of times we’ve had service people out to fix one thing or another, and the cheap knobs that keep falling off. I would certainly think twice about buying another Maytag appliance. 
 
But coming back to my original contention, I don’t use much ice, especially in the winter, and I never drink from the waterspout, because I find it tastes terrible. What did we do before we had fridges that automatically gave ice and water eh? We got along quite fine!
 
And besides there were less possibilities of a number of things going wrong, as now happens with all the supposed conveniences on them. And I was made to understand that’s how all the fridges are now made. The Lord help us! And another service man is supposed to come today, of course at some ridiculous service charge.
 
But that’s one of the reasons why I don’t like all this new fangled technology; they try to put too many features into a single item, and they never seem to work properly, plus when one breaks down, it causes eternal problems. And don’t even talk about the one button that does several different things, as they have in all these new gadgets. Steups! It’s just a bit much for my mentality. I like my one button dedicated to one function.
 
And having ‘preambled’ at length on my opening sentence, (smile) you all know that the ole fella’s longwinded, let’s turn to our Bit, which conveys such a powerful and important directive.
 
‘My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O Lord; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.’
 
Yes Friends, the best way to begin each and every day is with prayer! Remember Jesus did it, (Mark 1:35) so why should we not follow our leader, the best example of righteousness that we have. And today we’re going to highlight some scriptures that show the importance of prayer, and which also encourage us to make prayer a big part of our lives.
 
And we’ll start with an interesting, but little talked about scripture. It comes from 1 Samuel. ‘Moreover as for me, God forbid that I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for you: but I will teach you the good and right way.’ (1 Sam.12:23) That was Samuel’s promise when he addressed Israel re their high level of sinfulness.
 
And the scholars have an interesting note on that verse. ’12:23. Despite Israel’s sin, Samuel LOVED Israel and Saul (cf.16:1) and pledged his continued help, especially in praying for them and teaching them the Lord’s standards. His LOVE for them however, would not dim his perspective as to what ways were right or wrong in Israel. He would do his divine duty of speaking the truth in LOVE (cf. Eph.4:15).’ 
 
And I’ll spoil us by quoting that last verse, since I know that very few are going to look it up. Bruh Paul is talking about the new life in Christ. ‘But speaking the truth in LOVE, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.’ (Eph.4:15)
 
Meanwhile, in Psalm 55, a cry against deceitful friends, Bruh David boldly declares: ‘As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud: and he shall hear my voice.’ (Ps.55:16-17)
 
Bruh David says that he will pray at least three times a day. That brings us to Daniel who apparently did the same thing.
 
‘Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a (that) day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime (had been doing before this).’ (Dan.6:10)
 
So although he knew that there was a plot afoot to kill him because of his praying to the God of his forefathers, he continued doing as he had always done. And the scholars point out: ‘6:10-11. Daniel was past 80 years of age at this time, yet he was still on his knees thanking God and asking for His guidance and help.’
 
Oh what a wonderful example for us to follow my people. Please let’s up our prayer quotient nuh. It will certainly enrich our lives. Much LOVE!
 
…to pray…and yet to pray again…should be the motto of ALL believers… 
 
P.S. The Bit’s late because I didn’t get up early enough to start my day with prayer, and still have enough time to send it our early, plus I had a couple of unavoidable distractions in between.
 
Ah Friends, it’s not easy, that was a test to see if I was practicing what I preach. Don’t worry, I get tested on most of the stuff I write about, sometimes even before I’m even finished writing about it.
 
Obviously I don’t pass them all, or not as well as I should, but I’m happy to say that I passed this one today with flying colours! Wow! Aren’t you proud of me? (smile) Much LOVE!