Daniel 9:20-23 - You are greatly loved

9:20-23

We now see what is happening in heaven. When we pray we are not just uttering words into the air, they have an effect in heaven. Daniel was confessing his own sins and the sins of the people. He was also making requests to God for Him to restore “His holy hill” (i.e. Jerusalem). Gabriel “the man I had seen in the earlier visions”. There is a continuity between the visions. Angels often have the appearance of a man. He came to give Daniel insight and understanding, and there was a response in heaven to his prayer as soon as Daniel uttered his words. “For you are highly esteemed” (NIV), or “you are greatly loved”. There are some interesting points from all this. The first is that our prayers and what is going on in heaven are closely linked. The second is that some things that happen happen because we pray, and if we do not pray they will not happen. Now this can lead to us asking silly questions, like do our prayers change the mind of God? Is God dependent upon our prayers? These are silly questions, making sense only from a purely human perspective. But we are not dealing with things from a purely human perspective, we are dealing with things from an eternal perspective. God has told us to pray, therefore we should pray, knowing that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective (James 5:16). We should just get on with it!

Another thing to note is that God’s response was partly contingent upon Daniel being “highly esteemed” of “greatly loved”. We rightly say that we are saved by grace and not because of any goodness within us (there isn’t a lot of that to be found!). But this can lead us to the extreme position of thinking what we are like and what we do makes no difference. This is not a Biblical position! The Bible is quite clear that what we do, and our characters matter! Jesus made the same point on several occasions in His own ministry. 

So how do we sort all this stuff out? Again the Bible gives us the answer, this time in Prov 4:5,6:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 

in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.

So often when we raise these questions it is a sign that we are leaning on our own understanding, instead we should trust in the Lord with all our hearts.