The Daily Habit That Changes Everything

The Daily Habit That Changes Everything

What if one simple daily habit could transform your faith, your peace, your courage, and your future?

In this message, we look at the incredible story of Daniel in the lions' den and discover that Daniel's greatest victory didn't begin when he faced the lions—it began long before, in the quiet place of daily prayer.

When prayer becomes a lifestyle instead of a last resort, it changes the way we face fear, temptation, uncertainty, and life's greatest challenges. Daniel's consistent relationship with God prepared him for the moment that would define his life.

In this teaching you'll discover:
• Why daily prayer builds unshakable faith.
• How healthy spiritual habits prepare you for difficult seasons.
• What Daniel teaches us about courage, consistency, and trusting God.
• Practical ways to make prayer a natural part of your everyday life.

No matter where you are in your walk with God, my prayer is that this message encourages you to spend time with Him every day. You may not know what tomorrow holds, but when you walk closely with God today, He prepares you for whatever comes next.

"Then Daniel went home to his house... and three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before." — Daniel 6:10

#Daniel #LionsDen #Prayer #DailyPrayer #Faith #ChristianLiving #BibleStudy #TrustGod #SpiritualGrowth #Hope #Jesus #ChristianEncouragement #RenewYourLife #LifeWithMax

Transcript

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The daily habit that changes everything. That's what we're going to talk about today. My name is Max Marcou, and this is Life with Max. The Bible says in Philippians, don't worry about anything, instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. We're going to look at a story that I think is going to help make this more of a reality for all of us. And it's found in the Old Testament in the book of Daniel. Now I'll set it up. What happened in Daniel chapter 5 in history as it's being recorded here is that the king was killed, and here comes a new leader. Darius the Mead took over the kingdom at the age of 62. And I'll just start reading in Daniel chapter 6, verse 1. Darius the Mead decided to divide the kingdom into 120 provinces, and he appointed a high officer to rule over each province. The king also chose Daniel and two other administrators to supervise the high officers to protect the king's interests. So this is fascinating to me because he's putting Daniel in a very important position of leadership to protect his interests. Why? Well, we'll study Daniel another day, but just to give you a quick background, Daniel is not from this land, and he was taken by force as a teenager, and he decided that he was going to try to overcome all the challenges that came with that. And he showed himself or he proved himself to be very trustworthy. And he had a close relationship with God. He is known to pray three times a day. And he had a reputation that he could be trusted. So he's being put into a position of uh power to protect the king. And a lot of the local people, they they're not happy about this because Daniel's not really one of them in their mind. And it says in Daniel chapter 6, verse 3 Daniel soon proved himself more capable than all the other administrators and high officers because Daniel's great ability, the king, made plans to place him over the entire empire. So Daniel's an overcomer, Daniel's an impressive young man, and he's trustworthy. Well, it says in verse 4, the other administrators and high officers began searching for some fault in the way Daniel was handling government affairs, but they couldn't find anything to criticize or condemn him. What they were looking for is a way to get him out. They wanted his position, and again, they wanted one of their own to have that position. And Daniel uh knew that these people were up to no good. And they they convinced the king, outside of Daniel's uh being there, they convinced the king that there should be a time where people would only pray to the king. And if they prayed to any other god, they'd have to be thrown into the lion's den. Maybe you've heard of the story Daniel in the Lion's Den. Well, this is this is where it comes from, and this is going to help us to see how prayer can really be useful for you and I today. And Daniel uh knew after the king was uh his ego was uh happy that these people wanted to just have people pray to him and no other God, the king was like, that sounds great. Well, Daniel was uh a person, again, who had a real uh relationship with God and had a routine of meeting with God three times a day. And he decided he's not going to stop doing that. And so they got him. They got him on that charge that he prayed to another God, and so he was going to be thrown into the lion's den. Now, why did why didn't Daniel just not uh pray for that, you know, that time period in which they had uh instituted this new law? Daniel was uh a man of integrity and he believed what he was doing was right, and he clearly believed what they were doing was wrong. And so he continued to pray three times a day. Uh in chapter 10, I'm sorry, chapter 6, verse 10, it says, When Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room with its windows open towards Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he had always done, giving thanks to God. So that's the reference there, Daniel 6, 10. Now, most people understand the value of exercise. You know, if you exercise when uh you do it uh a few times a week or daily, whatever it is that you do, you know that when you need to call upon your body to get yourself moving, you'll be ready. And so that's not hard to understand. If you sit around all the time and you never exercise and someone says, hey, let's go hike this mountain, then you're not going to be ready. But um, but most people, I think, uh don't have a uh prayer life that has much consistency. And and I'm I'm admitting, when I was younger, I used to just pray when I needed something. I don't know if you can relate to that. But as I got older and I saw people older and wiser, smarter than me, praying as like part of their daily life, I thought, huh, there's something to that. Same with healthy eating. If you eat healthy, uh, you're much more equipped and your immune system stronger to avoid getting sick. But if you just eat junk, you know, it's not hard to understand that uh philosophy that you're probably not going to feel well and get sick. So the problem isn't knowledge with prayer. I think everybody that uh I talk to, they no matter what their background is, they say, oh, prayer sounds like it would be a healthy thing, like exercise, like a healthy diet. It's a healthy thing. And so it's not a knowledge problem, it's a consistency problem many times. And again, I think a lot of times it's like, oh, I don't feel good, or I'm in trouble, or I'm stressed out. And it's like going to the medicine cabinet and looking for medication to make you feel better. That's often kind of a connection of how people pray. Hey, if you're if you haven't prayed in a long time and you need help, pray. I'm not saying not to. I'm just saying we can have more of a successful life, I believe, when we have a relationship with God and we're in constant contact. Um, prayer is not, I wrote down, prayer is not merely crisis management, prayer is relationship maintenance. Man, I think that's uh something to think about. So healthy things produce results over time. Healthy things produce results over time. Daniel had been extremely successful, even though the odds were against him, life was against him, but God was for him. And he, uh, as I read earlier, he was put in a position that many people wanted. And in and in Daniel's eyes, he gave glory to God for everything he had. Um, so here Daniel's facing the lion's den. And I don't think Daniel's inner strength uh began when there was a crisis happening. He seemed to just have a pattern of prayer throughout his life, long before he was taken from his homeland. And there was something I learned from Daniel that changed my life, and that's why I'm sharing this with you. I hope it changes your life for the better. Daniel, I think most of the time would probably be praying and no one would see it. And it's very personal to him. And I'm not saying you have to copy and paste Daniel's, you know, approach, you don't have to pray three times a day. But I do encourage you to carve out some time each day. And some people say, Oh, I need to pray for an hour. Hey, if that's you, that's fine. But even if you took five minutes a day and just took some time to not just talk to God or make your complaints known, but to listen to him. I'm a big believer. I'm looking at my study Bible over there. I'm a big believer that God talks through his word. Now, I also believe that the Holy Spirit can certainly help us communicate with Jesus. Absolutely, that's biblical truth. But a study Bible and a little time of talking to God and then meditating on the word and listening to what he may say through that, that's a recipe that works really well for me. So there's not one way to do it, but I like that way. So I put, I wrote down here uh the public victory was produced by private discipline. Daniel's victory was produced by private discipline. In other words, not everybody doesn't need to know what you're doing in private. You can be praying, studying the Bible, growing closer to God, allowing him to speak into your heart and your mind, and strength will be developed before the challenge comes next time. Wouldn't it be wonderful that if if there was a challenge that you didn't see coming in a month from now, but you had been in a routine of spending some time with God each day, and all of a sudden there's a challenge. It might be in your life or somebody around you, and you felt that you were more equipped to deal with it, that you had strength that was developed over time, and then the challenge comes, and you carry yourself in a much more dignified way, a person filled with wisdom, self-control. That's beautiful. Uh, I wrote, prayer develops spiritual strength before the battle arrives. Let's keep going. Let's go to the New Testament for a moment. John chapter 5, verse 16. Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. It's true. Jesus, did he need to withdraw to the wilderness for prayer, or was he just giving us an example to follow? It doesn't matter. Either way, he gave us something to see as an example of how he conducted himself. Jesus would be going around helping, healing, giving good news to people. He was needed by just lots and lots of people. And he would often withdraw to the wilderness for prayer. Maybe you feel like people are always pulling at you, and maybe they are. Maybe you have a lot of responsibilities, and sometimes it just feels like nobody cares about you, or there's no break. That's why I'm gonna encourage you. Even five five minutes is a long time. If you take your phone and put the uh the little stopwatch on, hit five minutes, read a short little story in the Bible, think about it, pray, ask God to speak to you. Boy, that's that's nourishing. Let's keep going. First Thessalonians chapter 5, that's a book of the New Testament, verse 16 and 18. Always be joyful, never stop praying. Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to Jesus. As you grow in a relationship with God, uh you will be more joyful. I'm not saying you're gonna be happy all the time, because sometimes things uh it wouldn't make sense to be happy. Sometimes sad things happen and bad things happen, but you can have a joy on the inside that you know that God's gonna help you through that. And prayer is a beautiful way to just continue to grow in that not just relationship with God, but an understanding of who you are and how much you can handle. Daniel had to handle a lot. He's facing the death chamber. People that went into the lion's den did not survive. Okay, number two, prayer is spiritual nutrition. Spiritual nutrition. You will be, as I said earlier, much more equipped if you have a healthy diet of prayer. We know that healthy eating is good for us, so we I encourage you to eat healthy. We know that exercise is good for us, yes. Prayer is spiritual nutrition. So, number one, healthy things produce results over time. And number two, prayer is spiritual nutrition. So let's keep going here. Matthew chapter six. Give us today the food we need and forgive us our sins as we have forgiven those who have sinned against us. This is Jesus teaching us how to pray. And he's uh he's helping us to align with him and his heart. And he's saying, give us today what we need. What do you need today? That's a question I have for you. What do you need today? What do you like? Not just what do you want today, what do you really need today? And then uh forgive us of our sins and uh help us to forgive those that have sinned against us. You ask God these questions and and you accept that He has an answer and you allow Him to have a moment and kind of tune you up, boy, that could be really change, you know, change your whole attitude and approach to the rest of the day or help you sleep better. Number three, prayer creates peace before the problems change. I I wonder, I wish I could have been there to see what Daniel was like when he was approaching the lion's den. He knows that these people set him up. That's a terrible feeling. If you've ever been set up before, uh it's it's not a good feeling at all. And but I believe Daniel he knew that God was with him. And he was able to forgive these people that sinned against him because he had this just beautiful connection that he he certainly proved himself to do very well on earth with earthly matters, but he was like on a different level. Uh it's just beautiful. All right. So I wrote one of the greatest benefits of prayer is that it often changes us before it changes our circumstances. It has for me many times. I have been in a position where the circumstances haven't changed, but I've been changed, and I am then able to sleep better and handle myself and get through whatever that challenge may be. So Daniel still faced the lion's den, Jesus still faced the cross, Paul still faced the Apostle Paul in the New Testament. He was going through stuff of facing prison, yet his attitude, he was like singing psalms in the middle of the night, even though he's chained up in prison uh for not really doing anything wrong. Um, prayer gave all of them peace. Again, there's lots of stories in the Bible that will help us. Let's keep going here. Let's uh let's see, let's finish the story. Daniel chapter six. Um, you know, he's thrown into the lion's den, and then it says in chapter six, verse nineteen, very early the next morning the king got up and hurried out to the lion's den. When he got there, he called out in anguish, Daniel, servant of the living God, was your God, whom you serve so faithfully, able to rescue you from the lions? And Daniel answered, Long live the king. My God sent his angel to shut the lion's mouth so that they would not hurt me, for I have been found innocent in his sight, and I have not wronged you, your majesty. The king was overjoyed and ordered that Daniel be lifted from the den. Not a scratch was found on him, for he had trusted God. The daily habit that changes everything is prayer. Not just asking for help, not just asking for stuff, but asking God, what do you have to say to me today? I'm not going to read to you the end of this story because it's quite graphic, but there you can read it yourself. Just go to Daniel, uh, the book of Daniel, uh, chapter six. We can read the whole story for yourself, and then you'll find out that those lions were very hungry, and the king uh decided to do something uh uh after he got Daniel safely out of there. That's a story for another day. The Bible is wild. I encourage you to read it for yourself. But let's finish up this teaching about prayer. Now we'll talk about prayer many different times, but it's I think important to realize that you have an opportunity to connect with your creator, Father God. The best way I found to do that is through getting to know Jesus and reading different Bible stories. Today we looked at the story of Daniel and prayer. And I'm a broken record. I'm always going to encourage you to study the Bible for yourself. I'm here to help you. There's many places to help you but inspire you, but nothing really beats also getting into that Bible yourself and allowing it to speak to you personally. So let's pray and trust that we can work this habit of having a prayer life, a daily prayer life, uh, going forward. And thank you so much for taking the time to listen to this or to watch this. Father God, thank you for everyone. I pray, Lord, that they will see the benefit of having a relationship with you through prayer, and that they will be prepared better in the future because of their connection with you on a daily basis. I thank you for that, and I pray that you would really make yourself real to them in it in a beautiful way, in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I hope you keep tuning in. Again, my name is Max Marcou. You can go to elevationchapel.org. I have a church right outside of Boston in Newton, Massachusetts. If you're ever around on a Sunday, please come visit. And in the meantime, get yourself a good study Bible and dig in. All right. Hope to see you next time.