Resurrection Power & Purim
Easter and Esther have more in common than a few letters....
The Story of Esther
When disillusionment comes...
Esther, a Jew living among the exiles in Persia, became queen of the empire in about 480 B.C. Haman, a Persian official, sought to eradicate the Jewish minority, but God had prepared Esther “for such a time as this” (4:14) to save his covenant people.
Reflections on Esther
Esther’s plan for her life likely didn’t look like God’s plan—she probably didn’t count on becoming a concubine to the king and then the king’s wife. But in a seemingly hopeless situation, God used Esther to save his people from destruction; his plan was bigger than Esther likely ever imagined. Sometimes there is blessing in disillusionment.
I always felt that I was living my life according to God’s plan. I built dreams and created expectations, assuming that they would be fulfilled if I made the right choices. But then I woke up to a reality that didn’t match my hopes.
My beliefs about how my life would turn out were pleasant but false. I was forced to recognize that I was clinging to a pretense.
We often build pretenses for how our Christian lives should appear: ideas we imagine should govern our lives, rights we perceive we have. Yet our pretenses often lack the foundation that God has his own plans for our lives.
We long for a path free from pain and barriers, but God doesn’t always follow the easy trail. Fortunately, when we are crushed and brokenhearted—even from our own pretenses—we know that the brokenness doesn’t separate us from God. It draws us nearer to him.
Choosing our own way
High Stakes
for an edict written in the name of the king and sealed with the king’s ring cannot be revoked.”
on the very day when the enemies of the Jews hoped to gain the mastery over them, the reverse occurred: the Jews gained mastery over those who hated them.
Purim
Resurrection Power
The central theme of the Bible focuses on power, but not in the sense that human reason or institutions pursue it. Fallen man tends to think of power only in terms of self-serving possessiveness or dominating control. Power in human hands, apart from God’s transforming grace in the life, is self-centered, manipulative, and inevitably destructive.
But the power the Bible reveals differs radically at every point. The power that flows through and from the Word of God finds its fountain in the heart of God’s love and its foundation in the wisdom of God’s purposes.
FAITH is formed in Fellowship with Jesus Christ.
A Powerful experience
When he became a Christian, it was not the end for Paul, but the beginning. His experience with Christ was so tremendous that it transformed his life. And this experience continued in the years to follow. It was a personal experience (“That I may know Him”) as Paul walked with Christ, prayed, obeyed His will, and sought to glorify His name. When he was living under Law, all Paul had was a set of rules. But now he had a Friend, a Master, a constant Companion! It was also a powerful experience (“and the power of His resurrection”), as the resurrection power of Christ went to work in Paul’s life. “Christ liveth in me!” (Gal. 2:20)
A Painful experience
Rescued from the Furnace
Da 3:1–30 describes a provision miracle.
This miracle was performed by God and was received by Abednego, Meshach, and Shadrach.
The men who were cast into the fiery furnace came out as they went in—except their bonds.
How often in some furnace of affliction God strikes them off! Their bodies were unhurt—their skin not even blistered. Their hair was unsinged, their garments not scorched, and even the smell of fire had not passed upon them. And that is the way Christians should come out of furnace trials—liberated from their bonds, but untouched by the flames.
“Triumphing over them in it.” (Col. 2:15.)
That is the real triumph—triumphing over sickness, in it; triumphing over death, dying; triumphing over adverse circumstances, in them. Oh, believe me, there is a power that can make us victors in the strife. There are heights to be reached where we can look down and over the way we have come, and sing our song of triumph on this side of Heaven. We can make others regard us as rich, while we are poor, and make many rich in our poverty. Our triumph is to be in it. Christ’s triumph was in His humiliation. Possibly our triumph, also, is to be made manifest in what seems to others humiliation.
—Margaret Bottome.
A Practical Experience
walking with Christ was also a practical experience (“being made conformable unto His death”). Paul lived for Christ because he died to self (Rom. 6 explains this); he took up his cross daily and followed Him. The result of this death was a spiritual resurrection (Phil. 3:11) that caused Paul to walk “in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). Paul summarizes this whole experience in Galatians 2:20,
Yes, Paul gained far more than he lost. In fact, the gains were so thrilling that Paul considered all other “things” nothing but garbage in comparison! No wonder he had joy—his life did not depend on the cheap “things” of the world but on the eternal values found in Christ. Paul had the “spiritual mind” and looked at the “things” of earth from heaven’s point of view. People who live for “things” are never really happy, because they must constantly protect their treasures and worry lest they lose their value. Not so the believer with the spiritual mind; his treasures in Christ can never be stolen and they never lose their value.
Maybe now is a good time for you to become an accountant and evaluate in your life the “things” that matter most to you.
Erasing the Plan the Devil Has for your death
Measured for a coffin
Our Hope and Joy - Walking with God
The Lord is our highest good and greatest treasure (73:25, 28), the giver of every good and perfect gift (James 1:17). To know Him through Jesus Christ is the highest privilege in life. If we have anything that we think is good, and it doesn’t come from God, it isn’t good.