[Darris McNeely] It's the fall, our Ambassador Bible College has entered another new academic year. And I'm back in the classroom teaching, and I couldn't be happier. I'm teaching the book of Daniel right now. And we're going through chapter 1, great story about Daniel, and how he wound up in Babylon and he and his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they decided that they would not eat the food off the king's tables as they were enrolled in this high-end preparatory type of program for government civil service there in the empire of Babylon. In verse 8 of Daniel 1, is the key statement that I always have to kind of land upon and make a point to, to the class. Where, Daniel, it says, "Purposed in his heart, that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank, and so he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself." It had to do with their diet, their food and what they would not eat at a particular point of time in the service of the king's household there. Many reasons why no doubt unclean foods were part of it. Maybe the foods were offered to pagan deities, and they had scruples there or other things that were just not told. But it wasn't a matter of food that Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself.

And the aftermath is they pass the test. He and his friends still had their good health, and they were able to pass on into service at the court of Babylon. God honored that and He gave them, it says later, wisdom and understanding and dreams and visions. And the story goes on in the book of Daniel, but they began by purposing in their heart. He purposed in his heart. You know, you and I have to purpose in our heart. We have to sometimes make a decision, we draw a line this much and no more in our personal ethics, morality, behavior, the decisions we make. Daniel and his friends did this with a matter of food, which the Bible has a lot to say about, talks about clean and unclean meats. You go back to the Garden of Eden and the story of Adam and Eve that they took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, fruit from that tree, against God's wishes. It was in a matter of food, even there in that initial story in the Bible, that we see people getting off track. And here, Daniel, on an issue of food and diet, they drew a line.

Take that out to the rest of our lives. Are there things that we need to draw a line, purpose in our heart, we're not going to defile ourselves with, whatever it might be, beyond food, to entertainment, to behavior, to morality, to aspects of our life, when we bring that into conformity to the word of God, to His way, to His law, but we have to purpose in our heart. We have to be like Daniel this way, and if we are, we can expect wisdom and understanding and many aspects of our life, just as God gave to Daniel. But it begins with taking a stand in our Babylon, our modern Babylon that we live in today.

What will you purpose in your life?

That's BT Daily, join us next time.