When God Reveals Deep and Hidden Things
When God reveals something to you, it is such a personal experience that when you try to explain it to someone else, the story falls flat. Not so with Daniel.
I’ve been so excited to get to this devotion, I don’t know where to start! When God reveals something to you, just to you, it is such a personal and meaningful experience that when you try to explain it to someone else, the story falls flat.
Not so with Daniel. King Nebuchadnezzar had planned to kill all of the wise men in Babylon. Why? Because they couldn’t tell the king what his dream had been and what it meant. Did you catch that? Not only did he want an interpretation of his dream, but he wanted the astrologers and magicians to tell him what his dream had been.
Um, yeah, they couldn’t do it.
The king was on to them, and he was furious. He had figured out that the magicians, enchanters, sorcerers, and Chaldeans (diviners) just told him what he wanted to hear. This time, he wanted the truth.
Because they could not tell him his dream he planned to tear all the “wise men” limb from limb and to destroy their homes (2:5).
Unfortunately, Daniel and his friends, through no fault of their own, were lumped into this large group of “wise men.” When Daniel learned the reason for the king’s decree, he asked the king for time, that he might be able to interpret the dream for him. He asked his friends to plead for God’s mercy so that they would not be executed with the rest of the wise men.
“During the night the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision” (2:19 NIV).
Can you imagine? God showed Daniel what the king’s dream was!
We read these accounts in the Bible as if the people knew God would come through for them.
Might I shift our perspective? People in the Bible knew that God could come through for them. But they went into the fiery furnace and the den of lions not knowing whether they would come out alive. (For proof of that, see Daniel 3:16-18.)
Before Daniel went to sleep that night, he had pleaded with the Lord to show him the king’s dream. But he did not know for certain that God would reveal it to him or even how that would happen if it were to happen.
Imagine his awestruck humility when God really did show him the dream. I picture him dropping to his knees, hands on the floor, tears of thanksgiving streaming down his cheeks.
Or maybe he stood tall and raised his hands high, pacing the floor as he praised God with unbridled joy!
The dread of execution had been lifted. Even more meaningful than that, the God of the universe had heard Daniel’s prayer and had answered it with exactly what Daniel needed.
Daniel immediately praised the God of heaven for what had been revealed to him.
Has God revealed a deep understanding to you–maybe about a person, a situation, or even knowledge you needed to accomplish a task? Did you feel like dropping to your knees in thanksgiving?
How phenomenal that we can go to the God of heaven and seek wisdom and understanding from Him. Let’s join Daniel in taking on courage to ask God for what we need.
What knowledge or understanding do you hope for God to reveal to you?
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Read Daniel’s prayer of thanksgiving below, and enjoy your quiet moments with the Lord as you work through the Digging Deeper questions.
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Daniel 2:17-23 (ESV)
God Reveals Nebuchadnezzar’s Dream
17 Then Daniel went to his house and made the matter known to Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, his companions, 18 and told them to seek mercy from the God of heaven concerning this mystery, so that Daniel and his companions might not be destroyed with the rest of the wise men of Babylon. 19 Then the mystery was revealed to Daniel in a vision of the night. Then Daniel blessed the God of heaven. 20 Daniel answered and said:
“Blessed be the name of God forever and ever,
to whom belong wisdom and might.
21 He changes times and seasons;
he removes kings and sets up kings;
he gives wisdom to the wise
and knowledge to those who have understanding;
22 he reveals deep and hidden things;
he knows what is in the darkness,
and the light dwells with him.
23 To you, O God of my fathers,
I give thanks and praise,
for you have given me wisdom and might,
and have now made known to me what we asked of you,
for you have made known to us the king’s matter.”
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Digging Deeper: God Reveals Truth to Us
Enjoy this precious time with the Lord. Reflect on or journal about the following questions, listening for what God has to say to you.
In our previous devotions in this series, we gave thanks for people who have touched our lives in a special way, and we gave thanks for what God has done for us.
Today, we are focusing on thanking God for what He has shown us or revealed to us.
- What understanding or knowledge has God revealed to you? This might have been a nugget of wisdom about a person, a relationship, or a task you needed to accomplish. Or it might have been a spiritual truth–something for which you had sought understanding. Maybe God revealed a truth to you about a life decision. Spend time reveling in God’s goodness and thanking Him for revealing His truth to you.
- What understanding or knowledge do you want God to reveal to you? Have courage to ask. “Wisdom and power are God’s” and He can make known to us what we ask (verse 23).
- Praise God from whom all blessings flow. “He reveals deep and hidden things” (verse 22). Let’s get our worship on. You can sing with one of these songs or one of your choosing:
Jesus (by Chris Tomlin)
Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow (the doxology)
Give Thanks (with a grateful heart)
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Great devotional and reminder! Although I did not ask, I had a dream a month or so ago about a mutual friend of someone I barely know. When I woke up, God spoke into my dream telling me what it meant and that this woman I dreamt of has struggled with depression and suicidal thoughts throughout her life. I knew she was Buddhist but felt like the Lord was asking me to speak into her life by telling her about the dream God gave me. I was very nervous to tell her about it but stepped out in faith. Turns out she had struggled deeply with depression and suicidal thoughts. I shared Gods love with her through Jesus. And still don’t know what God is doing in her life now through that but my faith was strengthened so much by stepping out and seeing that God most certainly speaks to us in miraculous ways! After reading your devo, I don’t want to just wait for that revelation, but ask expectantly for it. Thanks!!
Oh my goodness. Your testimony sends chills (the good kind!) down my spine. What a willing, listening woman of God you are. Isn’t it the most amazing thing when God works so personally through us in this way?
Great devotional
I had a dream I can’t understand
I dreamt I was in a place where people were moving about. Sort of like a marketplace. A guy asked me if he could take my picture. He was a photographer with his assistant. His name was Kai. He staged me with a guy and posed us together. He took another shot with another guy I remember looking up at that guy posing myself. I thought to myself I hate this pose. Kai looked at the shots and made the selection. He loved the picture. I thought it was nice myself. My eyes were so piercing. He was younger than me with dark skin. He was slender, and African. He had a strong accent. I felt a connection to him. He showed me a picture of a woman that looked just like me. I thought Oh wow!!! I very seldom see a person that looks like me and recognize it. He didn’t say who she was or if it was just some passer by he had taken a picture of.
I hadn’t had attention from a man in that way in a very long time. I felt it was intimate from a stranger, in a non physical way. His assistant (young aa woman) told me Kia passion was helping addicts, and others to the other side, something like that and I immediately woke up.
Yes. God does speak to his people. Always has, always will. In the book Experiencing God, in one place the author describes doing a lesson to pastors about hearing God’s voice. Afterwards one of them said to him, “I vowed to God I would never, ever again listen to a man like you. You talk as though God is personal and real and talks to you. I just despise that.” He responded by asking if the man was having trouble hearing God speak to him. They prayed together.
He finished by writing this in that passage, “Oh, don’t let anyone intimidate you about hearing from God.”
And people will do that. Pastors will do that. Theologians will. It’s true that you do have to be careful about saying “this was God” “that was God’s doing” without careful thought, and pulling your own thoughts out of your head and convincing yourself it was God. But God does speak to his people. Through dreams, visions, feelings, circumstances, other people, and especially by the scriptures. And, by any other means he might want to. But some conservative churches can be bad with implying or actually outright stating that God doesn’t still speak, or that we are delusional to think that he does.
Don’t let anyone tell you God doesn’t speak to his people.
Going through a divorce and it will be finally in the 26th of August. I’ve been closer to God than I have ever been seeking him for everything. He has spoken to me in so many ways but mostly through worship songs. For example, a song came to me at 5:30 the other morning and it was so pronounced that it woke me up. It’s a song called Sundays coming. It a song that even though it looks bad now you will have a break through. It’s a song I haven’t listened to in a while. That same day in the evening I was struggling with the whole situation and asked God if He wanted me to give up on our marriage and I also asked Him to show up to me. Yet again another song was shown to me the song is “Way Maker”
The lyrics shown to me were “ way maker miracle worker promise keeper that is who you are”. In other ways I’ve heard God and I’ve told people they have always tried to tell me maybe that’s not what God means. Maybe it means this. I find it discouraging when they do that so it gets me to think, well maybe that’s not what God said to me. Prayers for me!
“The Lord’s Returning””The Lord’s Returning”The Lord’s Returning. I received by his message at my kitchen sink over 33 years ago. I was overcome by fear because something inside me was telling me that it was true due to the generatin of my birth. Because I did not trust myself enough to accept it as being from God and not my imagination or the enimey I told God that if it was from Him I needed to know. He needed to confirm it. I was pleading like Daniel because it was freaking me out. I received an answer by way of of a vision. Long story short. Revelation 2:17 has been fulfilled. What this verse is showing you is how Jesus would know. It would be by receiving a sign by way of the father (White Stone) He would know at the time this exchange took place the last Church was in existence on earth and they ate the ones who will see him face to face during their lifetime. Once this was made known is when this name be made known. I saw it as it was written above this white stone and I heard it as it was spoken out to me by God’s own voice. It’s Bloodstone. So this question what will be the sign of your comming and the end of the age was not given at the time He was asked but placed in a letter and sent to the Church.
Yes, I received deep revelation of the things of God decades ago. The knowledge was so profound I have never been the same since. It was something that has the potential to shatter everything, and put the WORD OF GOD on it’s rightful throne!
We can view the Word of God as the “Matrix” of reality. A supernatural software program that holds within its text the hidden KEY, that once found through diligent search, opens up the human mind not only to the understanding of God, but of all the mysteries mankind craves for!
I thank God for my natural deep skepticism and not just taking the word of someone else’s alleged understanding of the Bible, but rather my need to seek the Truth for myself!
I had searched for the truth ever since I was a little child, never approaching religious dogma but rather science and physics in particular. I was a person that needed to “understand things” in order to believe in them.
Although I was not interested in church attendance nor it’s boring rituals, being a Catholic by tradition not choice, I did believe in a creator God due to the stunning complexity, organization, and majesty I observed in nature.
In a turn of events in my life I came to the utter realization that “science” was never going to save my soul. It was at this point that I joined a modest little non-denominational Christian church, walked down its aisle October of 1991 at age 26, and received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. I was prayed over by the pastor and told at that moment I was saved and going to Heaven. Really? That’s it? I didn’t feel any different, my motives, thoughts, and desires were exactly the same as before. Am I suppose to just take this Pastor’s word and trust what he says? I think not!
This is when I decided to dig into the Holy Bible with the same deep fervor, passion, and zeal I had always studied science. I didn’t conform myself to a particular denominational doctrine or any pastoral authority, but rather bought the King James Bible on CD and chose to listen to it passionately in those wasted hours during rush hour traffic. This was a total of 15 hours of word a week for over 3 years. That’s a lot of Word! My own reasoning was if what pastors are using to teach and guide their congregations is the Bible, why not study it on your own? I’m certainly not going to trust my soul to some guy with what I saw as a MAN MADE degree in theology; my eternal destiny is infinitely too important for me not to do my homework!
My biblical endeavor allowed me to not only have scores and scores of scriptures memorized, but also entire CHAPTERS memorized verbatim, word for word. I could tell you what is in the Bible, and what is not. I had a tremendous amount of scriptures in my head, yet the TRUE MEANING and understanding of them had not yet DOWNLOADED into my heart.
This would soon change one Saturday morning March 25, 1995 while alone at the beach in my car, listening to Hosana Integrity Worship music, reading the Bible, and loving God with all my heart, mind, soul, and strength! That day I remember reading to “love your enemies”, something I could never see myself doing; how can you possibly love someone causing you harm? This is something that to me defied all understanding! I remember putting my Bible down and looking up to the sky with my heart simply overwhelmed with love towards God and fantasizing about how beautiful it would be to be just like Jesus!
Suddenly it happened, it really happened! I saw something open within my mind and all that word I had accumulated for years came rushing in, and in that one sweep powerful things took place. First, I felt the DEMONS that had lived inside me all my life and I never even knew were there jump out of me with a hideous screech. Second, my eyes were opened to a spiritual realm that is hidden to us in plain sight. And third, my brain processes and insight had skyrocketed to levels I never knew the brain was even capable of!
I sat there in my car trembling in fear not knowing what on earth was happening to me, pleading and asking God for help. Of course He obliged by bringing some of those memorized scriptures to the very forefront of my mind:
“My son, if thou wilt receive my Words, and hide my commandments with thee; So that thou incline thine ear unto wisdom, and apply thine heart to understanding; Yea, if thou criest after knowledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding; If thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as for hid treasures; Then shalt thou understand the FEAR OF THE LORD, and find the KNOWLEDGE OF GOD.”
(Proverbs 2:1-5)
When I picked up the Bible and looked at its pages I was simply astonished in amazement, it was just unbelievable! The Words had become HOLOGRAPHIC, as if they were hovering just above the pages with 3-D like qualities! No contradictions whatsoever! There is no way man could have wrote this; I thought! How can mere men write a book in 3-D? The Word’s perfection was absolutely staggering! Every parable, every scripture I didn’t quite seem to understand before, was now as plain as if reading a children’s book!
“Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you, I will make known my Words unto you.”
(Proverbs 1:23)
“All the Words of my mouth are in righteousness; there is nothing froward or perverse in them. They are all plain to him that understandeth, and right to them that find knowledge.”
(Proverbs 8:8-9)
Everything the Bible speaks about was absolutely TRUE, and I was experiencing it first hand!
“For the LORD giveth wisdom: out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. He layeth up sound wisdom for the righteous: he is a buckler to them that walk uprightly. He keepeth the paths of judgment, and preserveth the way of his saints. Then shalt thou understand righteousness, and judgment, and equity; yea, every good path. When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; Discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee:”
(Proverbs 2:6-11)
It was also while experiencing this in all its glorious splendor that God revealed to me the True Gospel! It was then I was shocked to realize “Oh my Lord! This means we’re not suppose to sin at all! Once again the fear of the Lord flooded me! I had sinned all my life; I had been told that we are sinners by nature; I was convinced that it is impossible not to sin; but now it was as if I’m going to have to live the rest of my life walking on egg shells! I’m doomed, that’s impossible! I thought; There is no way I can do this! The Lord suddenly showed me that no one makes us sin, but rather we CHOOSE to sin. It suddenly dawned on me, you’re right Lord, I know what is right, and I know what is wrong, I will just “choose” to do what is right! I don’t have to sin anymore! I was full of joy and excitement ready to start living my new life walking in the FAITH of the gospel! I couldn’t help but burst into tears when I realized God had planned this moment from the beginning of time when I read:
“But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth: Whereunto he called you by our gospel, to the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.”
(2 Thessalonians 2:13-15)
People, I have taken the time to write this long post as a testimony of God’s love and faithfulness to those that diligently SEEK and LOVE Him.
The Bible is “GOD” in written form:
If A=B , and B=C , then A=C
A=GOD, B=JESUS, C=WORD
If GOD=JESUS,
and JESUS=WORD,
then GOD=WORD
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the WORD WAS GOD.”
(John 1:1)
But as it turns out I discovered and was made aware of that the WORD is also the HOLY SPIRIT!
“It is the SPIRIT that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the WORDS THAT I SPEAK UNTO YOU, they are SPIRIT, and they are life.”
(John 6:63)
“And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the SPIRIT, which is the WORD OF GOD.”
(Ephesians 6:17)
So the equation is now :
GOD = WORDSPIRIT or G=WS
When God takes the BEAM out of your eye spoken of by Jesus that hinders you from seeing CLEARLY and your mind becomes quantum entangled with those WORDS jumping out of the pages and speaking directly to YOU once the HOLY SPIRIT enters you, it turns the equation into:
G = WS^2 (squared)
Now doesn’t almighty “science”claim that absolutely everything in existence is made of “ENERGY” which they themselves have proven is E=MC^2 (squared)?
“There is no WISDOM nor UNDERSTANDING nor COUNSEL against the LORD.”
(Proverbs 21:30)
WELL HOW ABOUT THAT FOR CHECKMATE!!!
“By the WORD of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.”
(Psalms 33:6)
“Heaven and earth shall pass away, but MY WORDS shall not pass away.”
(Matthew 24:35)
“He that rejecteth ME, and receiveth not MY WORDS, hath one that judgeth him: THE WORD THAT I HAVE SPOKEN, the same shall JUDGE HIM in the last day.”
(John 12:48)
HENCE THE IMPORTANCE OF FINDING OUT WHAT THE “WORD” HAS TO SAY!
God Bless.