Daniel 9 Devotional

Asking on Mercy Alone

“Incline Your ear, O my God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your name. For we are not presenting our petitions before You because of our righteous acts, but because of Your great compassion.”Daniel 9:18 (BSB)

Daniel reads in Jeremiah that Jerusalem's desolation will last seventy years (9:2), and responds not by calculating but by praying. With fasting and sackcloth, he confesses that his people have sinned, rebelled, and ignored the prophets, and he counts himself among them (9:5-6, 9:20). Righteousness belongs to God, and shame to Israel (9:7). Then he makes his request, grounded not in anything Israel has done but in God's great compassion and for the sake of God's own name (9:18-19).

Before he finishes, Gabriel arrives. The answer went out the moment Daniel began to pray (9:23). The message speaks of seventy weeks decreed to finish transgression, make atonement for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness, and of a Messiah who will be cut off (9:24-26). Believers read the details differently, but the words point toward a final dealing with sin that only God can accomplish, the kind of atonement the gospel announces in Jesus. You can come to God the way Daniel did, with nothing to offer but your need and his mercy.

To think about: What would change in your prayers if you came to God trusting his mercy rather than your own record?