MONDAY, 18 January, 2021 “A New Queen”

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Good Monday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends.

Well, we have another history making week ahead of us in America and around the world, don’t we? The era of President Trump and his administrative team will give way to a dramatically different era as President Biden and VP Harris are scheduled to take office in America this week. I doubt any of us can imagine the speed and scope of the changes which may take place in Washington DC, for not only will there be a total change in the White House, the Senate will also change leadership. Thus for the first time in a long time, one political party will have unchallenged power in the US Congress and the White House and the strongly ‘left leaning’ party of Democrats has made it very clear they intend to immediately bring sweeping change to American society and foreign relations. None of us is able to predict what things will look like one or two years from now.

Strongly supported by most of the media and entertainment industries in America, the information which will be distributed to the world about these sweeping changes and how they will affect daily life, will be clearly biased. It will require diligence and discernment to accurately understand the truth about what will be happening all around us as society changes very rapidly. God’s Word, the Bible, and the personal work of the Holy Spirit guarding and guiding our minds will be essential, my friends, enabling us to listen, think, reason and sustain a walk with God that is untainted by the soon coming changes in our world.

For this reason, I believe our daily “Walking with Jesus” and other such Biblical resources are going to be priority for God’s people to keep nurturing our souls and LIVING as the “Salt & Light” Jesus called us to be, remember Matt. 5:8-16; and the “Ambassadors of Christ” Paul called us to be, remember 2 Corinthians 5:17-20; and the ‘chosen people of God’ who make a dramatic difference in the society in which you live, as Peter challenged us to be, remember 1 Peter 2:9-12?

There’s an old axiom which is so true… “Power corrupts”, and for that reason accountability and responsibility are so important in keeping power from corrupting a person, a family, a business, a church, even a society. In our ongoing study of God’s Word, yesterday we saw this truth in practice, as King Xerxes, who was the undisputed most powerful man in the world at that time, made a rash, radical, emotionally charged decision to dethrone Queen Vashti and banish her from his presence forever! It was a fearful moment in history, but once again, what the world didn’t know was that God was at work in this apparent crisis, for God could foresee great potential tragedies in the future which He wanted to prevent.

So, today let’s take encouragement from this miraculous reality: “From heaven the LORD looks down and sees all mankind; from His dwelling place God watches all who live on earth. He who forms the heart of all, considers everything they do…But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear Him, on those whose hope is in His unfailing love…” (Ps. 33:13-15,18) If you live in a part of the world which seems in chaos today, hold tightly to this promise of God from Psalm 33, and see it fulfilled in the story of Esther.

Esther chapter 2 is the account of King Xerxes again taking the advice of his counselors and ordering an empire wide search for a woman who would be qualified to be the new Queen at his side. You’ll notice the primary criteria for her selection were to be her beauty and her virginity. (Esther 2:2-4) Suddenly we meet a man name Mordecai and we learn that he and his family are descendants of those Jews taken as captive by King Nebuchadnezzar and dragged off from Jerusalem to Babylon about 100 years before.(Esther 2:5,6) The record says “Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman who was known as Esther was beautiful. Mordecai had taken care of her since her parents had died.”

Foster parenting is a wonderful way God can turn tragedy into triumph, would you agree? Both then and now, all over our world, children and teens, through no fault of their own, find themselves alone, without their birth parents for a wide range of reasons. Often, God has something very special He wants to do IN and THROUGH these ‘orphans’, all that is needed is loving, courageous adults willing to step in the gap and walk the journey of life with these kids. Do you know anyone who has lived that miracle, maybe even moving beyond ‘foster care’ to adoption? It’s a beautiful picture of what God has done for us as He adopts us into His family, isn’t it?

As you continue reading in Esther chapter 2, you’ll see the remarkable journey Esther lived as she was forcibly taken from Mordecai’s home and placed in the king’s harem, and then a year long preparation for her encounter with King Xerxes which would determine her potential eligibility to become Queen Esther. All you women reading this, I invite you to place yourself in the story and imagine the emotions, the questions, the anxiety, maybe even fear young Hadassah might have felt in those months.

Amazingly young Hadassah (Esther) was chosen by the most powerful man in the world, Emperor Xerxes, to be Queen of the Persian kingdom, seated on her throne at his side! It’s a wonderful ‘rags to riches’ story, but of course from God’s perspective it is so much more. By God’s sovereignty over all things, Mordecai and Esther became strategically positioned to actually save King Xerxes’ life as you will see in vs. 20-23! Now stop for a moment to consider the dramatic changes at the highest level of government in the Persian Kingdom… with Queen Vashti removed / a kingdom wide search for her replacement / Hadassah chosen and then installed as the new queen / and then an assassination plot discovered and averted! WOW!

So in our days of government changes and world wide chaos with the COVID pandemic, please take note that God reigns Sovereign over it all and sees every detail and is working all things into His larger, global, eternal purposes! Please grab hold of that my friends! Nothing is beyond God’s understanding or outside of His oversight. And while things may get even more challenging in days ahead, let’s keep our minds immersed in God’s Word and our eyes open to watch for God at work among us. As we close today, give some thought to the strategic roles God may be developing for you and me in the months and years to come, wherever you live in the world. What do you see in Mordecai and Hadassah which positioned them to be strategically used by God in a time of chaos in the world?

Now today, rather than a song, I have something else. My dear wife has found something that fits really well with our reflections today, so I urge you to read it slowly, out loud, and really ponder it… and then do what the Holy Spirit leads you to do in response. . .

One day a man was crossing a bridge in life but was scared and so he turned and asked God, “Can I hold Your hand God, so I may not fall?”

God said, “No, My child, I will hold your hand.”

The man asked, “What’s the difference?”

God replied, “If you hold My hand and something happens, you might let go, but if I hold your hand, no matter what happens, I will never let go of you”.

God bless you as you ponder this my friends.

Today’s Scripture is Esther 2.

Choose below to read or listen.

Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.

Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.

Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)

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