Discover the difference between biological shame, biblical shame, and binding shame — the on-going premise that one is fundamentally bad, inadequate, defective, unworthy, or not fully valued as a human being.
“Shame comes the closest to defining human bondage of all things I know. One of the reasons so many people are caught in binding shame … it has been the hidden culprit. It is time for shame to be exposed for what it is. Most people will admit to guilt, fear, or hurt before admitting to shame.” John Bradshaw
Resolution … reaction … reliance … resurrection … four key principles for those living in Babylon.
The book of Daniel portrays the life of Jews living in Babylon. At the center of the story are the lives of four young Hebrews – probably teenagers when they were captured – who are conscripted into the service of Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon.
In Babylon the goal was to absorb them … to co-opt them … to amalgamate them into a godless society so that God’s people would become indistinguishable from the rest of the world. Political pressure, legal extortion, and military might were used against them.
That is why their story has such a powerful message for us today. Strong currents of pluralism and secularism in contemporary Western society, reinforced by a paralyzing political correctness, increasingly pushing expression of faith in God to the margins, confining it if possible, to the private sphere.
We’re seeing the forceful imposition of a secular culture and anti-Christian belief system to replace traditional values that are in conflict with our nation’s first principles upon which America was built and has been sustained for hundreds of years.
How do we respond? Listen on.
Is it not ironic that in the pseudo-sophistication of America’s high-tech, cosmopolitan culture that the one thing most essential – the only thing that will save this nation – is the very thing that is so despised, dismissed, discounted, and so vehemently opposed by the tireless efforts of those intent upon replacing it with a new world-view that is stripped of common sense, morally bankrupt, bereft of answers, and void of hope – and continues to lead us in grand processional closer and closer to the abyss. Not the first time this has happened.
The book of Daniel portrays the life of Jews living in Babylon. Babylon was not their home; not their culture; their language; their names; their values; not their God. It is a picture of kingdoms in conflict – the clash between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world. The prevailing tension of Jews whose first responsibility is to God and His kingdom but are living among the Babylonians whose worldview is at every point contrary to theirs. Sound familar?
