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Day 243, or August 31. How well do you know Him? Our thoughts today come from Daniel chapter

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11 verse 32. But the people who know their God will firmly resist Him.

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And now the big picture surrounding this verse. The book of Daniel closes with several more

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visions that God gave Him. It seems they refer to both imminent events involving Persia and

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Greece as well as the end times. Daniel has been a faithful man of prayer and is now probably

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over 90 years old. And now today's action step. In these days

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of social networking, we can be led into thinking that we really do know some celebrities we're

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in contact with. We don't. We just know about them. I always smile when people ring in on

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radio phone-in shows and say something like, "Do you remember me? I rang you about six

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months ago." Usually the celebrity is too well mannered to tell the truth, and there

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is a short awkward silence before the programme continues. Just because you know a lot about

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someone it doesn't mean you actually know them. I remember being scolded on a bus in

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London for not recognising a woman who obviously thought she knew me. In the ensuing conversation

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she told me that I had conducted her mother's funeral a couple of years earlier. I felt

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awful that I hadn't recognised her. She went on to say that unfortunately she was unable

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to attend the funeral, but her family had appreciated how the service had been conducted.

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I thanked God silently for a sermon illustration, and shook her hand before leaving her when

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I got off the bus. She thought she knew me, but she only knew something about me, and

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then only second-hand. If we only know about Jesus and maybe then only what others have

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told us, and know nothing of his work in our lives, then we are treating him as an interesting

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historical character. There's so much more for us, and there's no time to waste. Start

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a conversation with him now, and respond to what he says as you consider his word.