10/15/2011 8:13:26 AM
SPIRITUAL DIARY
My Worship Time Focus: The promotion of Mordecia
Bible Reading & Meditation Reference: Ester 8:1-2,15
Message of the verses: “1 ¶ On that day King Ahasuerus gave the house of Haman, the enemy of the Jews, to Queen Esther; and Mordecai came before the king, for Esther had disclosed what he was to her. 2 The king took off his signet ring which he had taken away from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai. And Esther set Mordecai over the house of Haman.
“ 15 ¶ Then Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal robes of blue and white, with a large crown of gold and a garment of fine linen and purple; and the city of Susa shouted and rejoiced.”
This SD begins the second to the last chapter of both the book of Ester and also the commentary written by Warren Wiersbe that covers both the books of Ruth and Ester. He entitles this book “Be Committed,” and after studying the book of Ruth some time ago and now studying the book of Ester I truly agree with Wiersbe in choosing this title.
I have all of the commentaries that Warren Wiersbe has written on the different books of the Bible and they are in a set of six hard bound books four of which are on the OT and two on the NT. I began my quest of using these commentaries to aid me in writing my Spiritual Diaries sometime around 1995 and worked my way through the NT in about seven years. I do not have all of those SD’s saved on my computer, as I wrote some of them out in long hand. I began working on the OT on December 30, 2005 so it has been almost six years and there are a lot of books yet to study. The hard back book that I am using not goes from Joshua to Ester and is the second of which they both cover the “history” books of the OT. I began this book on 7/27/2009 9:25 PM. I must admit that in the past couple of years I have been much more faithful in completing these Spiritual Diaries everyday that I was earlier. It seems that the more that I study God’s Word the more I want to study it.
Dr. Wiersbe entitles this eight chapter of “Be Determined” “From Victims to Victors,” and he writes this at the beginning of his commentary: “In which the good news of a new law brings hope and joy.”
It must be remembered that once a law was written in the Persian Empire that it could not be revoked and so even though Haman was dead the law that he constructed was not and never would be. Dr. Wiersbe estimates that there were one hundred million people in the empire of which fifteen million were Jews and so the odds were not on their side. However God’s people have always been in the minority, but one with God is a majority, and we must remember that Mordecai and Ester were brought into power “for such a time as this.”
When we look back at the beginning of this book we see a little known Ester and Mordecai that were probably living a kind of middle class living and even could have been in the poorer class, yet now in this chapter we see Ester receive Haman’s estate, which was worth a considerable amount of money. We see Mordecai receiving the king’s signet ring, becoming the Prime Minister and in verse fifteen we see him wearing a new robe of white and blue with some kind of a crown on his head showing that he was a very powerful man in the kingdom of Persia. Let us look at Psalm 37:34-36 “34 ¶ Wait for the LORD and keep His way, And He will exalt you to inherit the land; When the wicked are cut off, you will see it. 35 I have seen a wicked, violent man Spreading himself like a luxuriant tree in its native soil. 36 Then he passed away, and lo, he was no more; I sought for him, but he could not be found.”
I suppose that one of the reasons that the king gave Ester Haman’s estate was he was feeling guilty over allowing Haman to write such a foolish law. Perhaps Ester would use some of her new found wealth to aid the Jews in the upcoming battle that they would be fighting in.
I wish to quote the last paragraph that Dr. Wiersbe wrote in this section because I believe that in the culture that we live in today this is necessary to for us to understand. “God doesn’t always give this kind of a ‘happy ending’ to everybody’s story. Today, not all faithful Christians are promoted and given special honors. Some of them get fired because of their stand for Christ! God hasn’t promised that we’ll be promoted and made rich, but He assured us that He’s in control of all circumstances and that He will write the last chapter of the story. If God doesn’t promote us here on earth, He certainly will when we get to glory.”
Spiritual meaning for my life today: This statement that I have quoted above is something that I need to hang onto. I want to serve the Lord in order to bring honor and glory to Him, and sometimes that kind of gets clouded and not done. Sometimes I think that I am serving in order to get something from the Lord here on earth, but that should not be the case. I believe that all believers should serve the Lord to give Him glory, but we serve Him also to receive rewards in heaven. Both Paul and Peter write about these rewards and they are available to all believers for doing the things that God has called us to do. Again I look at Ephesians 2:10 “For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.” When we as believers do those good works that God prepared for us to do in eternity past we will receive rewards for doing them. He has given us the gifts in order to do the works that we have been called to accomplish for Him while here on earth so there is no reason for us to be puffed up over accomplishing these works, but we should be thankful for the privilege of being allowed to accomplish these works.
I must admit that it is hard to live all of this out, but through the power of the Holy Spirit it can happen.
My Steps of Faith for Today:
1. Humility is a key in accomplishing the work of the Lord.
2. I want to continue to learn contentment.
10/15/2011 9:11:37 AM
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