For Such A Time

What if there were lives waiting on your obedience? How would you respond? Would you do things any differently?'

The more I have gotten to know God, the more I know him as The God of Strategy.

I am learning how incredibly strategic he is. He is like a master chess player who always has moves and countermoves planned out that are way beyond our understanding and far beyond the devil's schemes.

HE moves people into and out of certain positions for a purpose. He exalts the lowly and humbles the high up for a reason. But what would happen if one of his key pieces refused to do its part?

In the book of Esther chapt 4, we find that Queen Esther is beginning to understand why she has been shown so much grace and so much favor. She is beginning to see why she has been positioned as Queen. Up until this chapter, she really had no understanding of why.

The book does not go so much into her personal feelings about everything that has taken place in her life, but we can assume that she was probably just enjoying the ride. I'm sure that she was just thrilled to have been taken from being an orphan to being the Queen of the Persian Empire with everything at her disposal.

Everything that is except access to her husband the king. After the evil Haman had convinced the King to issue a decree of extermination against the Jews, there was great sorrow in the land, and rightfully so!

Now Esther was living in the palace and at this point, she had not seen her husband the King in over a month so she was oblivious to the threat against her people. So her Uncle Mordecai seized the opportunity and implored her to do something. To use her position of influence to save her people.

She basically responded by saying look..I can't do anything. I haven't seen the King in a long time and if I try and go into his courts without being called, I will be killed.

And Mordecai responded with such timeless wisdom that it could have only come from the Lord. He told her.

"Do not think in your heart that you will escape in the king’s palace any more than all the other Jews. 14 For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

This question still applies. This question is still relevant. And the question is being asked of you and of me to this day. Will you keep silent?

Esther had the decision to make. She had to decide if she was willing to lay down her life of comfort and convenience to help her people! And here is the funny thing.. Mordecai warned her to not think that inaction was an option. If she didn't speak up, she would also be in danger because she herself was a Jew.

It's Matthew 16:25: For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

If she had chosen to keep her life status quo and ignore what was happening around her, she would have lost her life. You can't ignore chaos and tragedy around you and think that it won't affect you one day too. Proverbs 14:34 says Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin condemns any people.

When a nation by and large chooses to sin, there are spiritual consequences that come upon the land. Jeremiah 29:7 instructs us to seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the LORD for it: for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

And so the question that Mordecai posed to Esther still stands. This question still applies. This question is still relevant. And the question is being asked of you and of me to this day. Will you keep silent? Or will you raise your voice in intercession for the lost, the hurt, and the demonized?

Will you go into the King's chamber on behalf of the people? Will you say yes to the call?

I have found that often people, including myself say yes with our lips but not with our actions.

We say yes with our lips but then spend our time in fruitless conversations or on our cell phones vs. using our time to seek the Lord, reach the lost and put our hands to build what he has called us to build.

A true yes is found in action. Will you throw off the weights that slow you down and the sin that so easily ensnares you?

Will you seek the Lord and allow his word to purify your soul and your heart?

Now God's purposes and plans will always prevail but what would have happened if Esther had said no?

And we have an even greater example to follow. Jesus Christ said yes. He said yes for you and for me so won't you follow his example and say yes with your mouth, heart, and actions. Say yes <3