SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 10/3/2011 9:23:08 AM
My Worship Time Focus:
“He
Expedited The Plan”
Bible Reading
& Meditation Reference:
Ester
4:15-17
Message of the verses: “15 Then Esther told them to reply to Mordecai,
16 "Go, assemble all the Jews who
are found in Susa, and fast for me; do not eat or drink for three days, night
or day. I and my maidens also will fast in the same way. And thus I will go in
to the king, which is not
according to the law; and if I perish, I perish." 17 So Mordecai went away
and did just as Esther had commanded him.”
We
come to the issue of fasting again, and as I have already written about fasting
in an earlier SD I wish to quote what Dr. Wiersbe says about this subject in
this SD: “Fasting and prayer are
frequently found together in Scripture, for fasting is preparation for
concentrated and humble prayer. (See Ezra
8:21-21; Psalm 35:13; Daniel 9:3; Acts 13:3).
Of itself, fasting is no guarantee that God will bless, for fasting must
be accompanied by sincere humility and brokenness before the Lord (Isa.
58:1-10; Joel 2:12-13; Matt. 6:16-18).
If fasting is only a formal religious ritual, it accomplishes no
spiritual purpose.”
We
can see that the crisis at hand is bringing a revival throughout all of the
kingdom of Persia by all of the Jews that were living there. Even though God is not mentioned in the book
of Ester his fingerprints are all over the book. The Jews were humbling themselves before the
Lord and fasting and praying which are great ways to begin a revival.
The
portion of Scripture that Ester tells Mordecia “If I perish, I perish” is kind of hard to truly understand for it
could mean that Ester is saying that I will go along with what you are asking
me to do but if I die I will just die.
This could also mean that she was trusting in the Lord to bring about
exactly what He had planned for this crisis and whatever He has planned for
Ester was ok by her. I lean towards the
second because of knowing the rest of the story and how Ester acted in this
great drama, bringing glory to the Lord through her actions.
As
we look at this drama building we can see that there is a lot of things that
are against Ester including the law that does not allow her just to stop in and
see the king, or the law that was to kill all of the Jews in a few months. Being a woman was actually against her for we
have seen how the king treats the opposite sex.
The officers at the court were against her for they were only looking
out for themselves. Even with all of
this against her Ester moved forward believing that God truly had a purpose for
her being where she was at this time in her life. Romans 8:31 says “if God be for us, who can be against us?” The answer, by faith of course is nothing.
Spiritual meaning for my life today: What I am convicted by is the word humbling,
and that is a word that I suppose if hard for a lot of people. Could it be that pride and humility are
opposites and that means that the reason why it is hard to be humble is because
of pride, pride in that one does not want to admit their mistakes, or when they
are wrong? When I was young, and in
school I remember a song that was sung by Roger Miller that still rings in my
ears from time to time. The portion of
the song that I remember is “Pride is
the chief cause in the decline of husbands and wives.” For a singer singing a song that was kind of
country it surely makes a lot of sense to me.
My Steps of
Faith for Today:
1.
Pride comes
before a fall.
2.
Humility is better than pride.
3.
Continue to learn contentment.
10/3/2011 9:55:55 AM
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