Esther

Here's a note I sent to my small group...we're taking a look at Esther:

Good morning brothers,

Just some follow-up thoughts on Esther:

Haman was an Agagite (Esther 3:3). Numbers 24:7 and 1 Samuel 15:8 – 33 indicate that the Agagites (synonymous with the Amalekites) were Israel’s adversaries. Israel’s failure to eliminate the Agagites meant that in a future generation Haman would appear and seek to eliminate Israel.

When we fail to seek the elimination of sin in our lives, and especially when we think we can accommodate our lives to sin – I think we can be sure of encountering our own Haman sooner or later. Also, as we see in the next section of Esther, not only does Haman have to go, his offspring also have to go – we simply cannot entertain sin in our lives (Romans Chapter Six).

Esther Chapter 4 contains two great statements, two Himalayan peaks; I sadly confess that I have not meditated on their grandeur for quite some time…shame on me.

“For you if remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this.”

We are called to live in an awareness of our calling (we are a royal priesthood – 1 Peter 2:9), and therefore wherever we are, whatever we’re doing, we are called to be aware of God’s possibilities in using us to bless others. We are called to serve others as a way of life.

“If I perish I perish.” This reminds me of Daniel 3:17 – 18 when Daniel’s three friends tell the king that they are going to worship God whether God saves them or not.

This attitude, this “spirit”, this passion, this total “all-in” for Christ, has left the Western church. We see it elsewhere in the world, but we do not see it in the West. It is as if the soul of the church has been compromised and we have A.I.D.S. – we cannot fight off false doctrine, demonic thinking, the deification of self, our pleasure-seeking propensities, our insistence on entertainment.

We ought to live everyday with Esther’s words on our lips, emblazoned on our hearts and in our souls.

I love you,

Bob