Week 3: Integrity Can Lead to Blessing
Daniel chose to honor God first in his life. He placed his personal relationship with God above everything else. Because of his desire to live out his faith, he made choices and took actions that were influenced by God, not by his culture’s standards. Although he faithfully served the king, Daniel cared more about God’s opinion than anyone else’s view.
Read Daniel 6:18-28.
Notice the influence that Daniel’s life had on a king who did not follow God. We see that King Darius remained up all night troubled by the punishment against Daniel. Because of the way Daniel chose to live, God was able to use him to affect the most powerful person in the entire kingdom.
Daniel had no idea what was going to happen as he was being thrown into that pit, but it didn’t matter. He was only concerned about honoring God. Once Daniel was in the pit, God sent angels to shut the lions’ mouths and keep them from even touching him. Daniel’s faithfulness to God resulted in King Darius sending out a decree to everyone in his kingdom to tremble and stand in fear before God. This is significant because the kingdom was full of all types of pagan gods, and this set Daniel’s God, the true and living God, above all others.
1. Blessed by friendship When we choose to live with integrity, people around us will notice. Your life can become a testimony that will help friends understand who God is. It is amazing that when we make our choices based on honoring God, many people will be drawn to us—and then drawn to God through us. Those who are close to us will notice that we are different, and even if they are non-Christians, they will want to be around us because they know we are trustworthy and respectable
2. Blessed by protection When we are willing to step out in faith, God shows up in incredible ways to protect us. God may not send angels to close the mouths of lions, like Daniel needed, but God has promised to watch over and protect us (2 Thessalonians 3:3). It’s worth noting that King Darius was hoping God had done something incredible. Most people would automatically assume that if you’d been thrown into a pit full of lions, you would be killed, right? Not King Darius. He went to the pit first thing in the morning and called out to Daniel hoping to hear his voice—and he did.
3. Blessed by prosperity Most Christians believe God wants to bless and take care of us. In our society, we often associate blessing with monetary gain; however, God does not always choose to bless us with money. Webster’s Dictionary defines “prosper” as flourishing or succeeding. Sure, God can bless us monetarily, but there are many other ways we can experience prosperity and blessing. God can bring good health, new friendships, a summer job, or opportunities to serve others—just to name a few examples.
Daniel found favor with several kings because of his personal integrity, resulting in his influencing countless people for God. Discuss some of the ways you are influencing these people in your lives:
a) Your parents?
b) Other family members?
c) Fellow students?
d) People in youth group?
e) Others?
What are three things you could change in your life right now to become a person of greater integrity? What would it require for you to make these changes?