We want to hear from you.As believers in Christ, we need to reject the soul and turn to our spirit through prayer, for when we pray, we declare that it is not us but Christ. Join us for the OBSĮxcerpted with permission from You Were Made for This Moment by Max Lucado, copyright Max Lucado.Īre you praying in desperation for something? Fasting prayer is disciplined prayer! Fasting prayer is powerful prayer! Come share your thoughts on fasting with us. I can’t think of a more simple - or more important - way that we can partner with God in bringing about a reversal. What if the only thing between you and a season of refreshing is prayer? I don’t mean a shallow tip o’ the hat to the “man upstairs.” I’m talking about heartfelt prayer. “Then,” he posed, “why do we work so hard and pray so little?” Good question. What is a missionary to say? “Yes, of course.” “Does our church believe this passage?” he wondered. Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive. He’d been reading his Bible (good for him), and he discovered this promise: Many years ago when our family lived in Brazil, a new Christian came to one of our church leaders with a question. Yet don’t think for a second that God won’t give you what you need. Aren’t we called to do the same?ĭon’t think for a moment that you have what it takes to weather this winter. She came before the king in beauty only after she lingered before the King of kings in humility. I get that.īut it wasn’t her glamour that opened the throne room door. He was a middle schooler she was a college-age cheerleader. Pleased with her? How about “unraveled by her”? “Overwhelmed by her”? “Reduced to ice cream on a July sidewalk by the sight of her”? “I’ll give you half of the kingdom,” the king gulped. He was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. One look at her and the jaw of Xerxes hit the ground. When Esther entered the king’s throne room, she was once again a head-to-toe picture of Persian perfection. Dehydration dried her skin and hollowed her eyes. She knows that God’s intervention is their only hope. She will seek the reversal of an irreversible law that has been sponsored by the most powerful man in the empire and endorsed with the king’s own signet ring. Until this point she had relied on her good looks. “Just get word to Mordecai: I’ll go to see the king. Her handmaids see her fall to the ground and rush to her aid. It’s going to be a bloodbath, and she sleeps with the king who ordered it. Her nation is about to be led to slaughter. In the movie I wish someone would make, Esther reads the words of Mordecai and crumbles into a heap, face-first on the floor of her bedroom. Rather than rush into the throne room of Xerxes, she humbled herself and stepped into the throne room of God. She responded, not with a call to her hair stylist, but with a retreat into the prayer chamber. Esther faced an immovable wall and the possibility of death for making the wrong move. They were making a statement: don’t mess with Xerxes. Neither had any interest in a change of mind. The vizier had declared the death penalty. Either way, her apathy was inexcusable.īut what could she do? The king had made his decision. Either she was too oblivious to know or too afraid to act. Her people, the Jews, had been declared worthy of mass murder, and she has done nothing. She realized, perhaps for the first time, that silence is a form of acquiescence. And if I perish, I perish.” - Esther 4:15-16 When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: “Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. But it wasn’t her beauty that made the difference. And, yes, Xerxes lowered his scepter and invited her to enter. “What can I do for you, my beauty?” The implied message of the movies is clear: the good looks of Esther softened and swayed the hard heart of Xerxes. When it does, we see Xerxes wide-eyed with mouth open. The camera can hardly bear to turn away from her splendor. She stands at the throne room entryway, robed in elegance. The movies are equally unanimous as to the moment of high drama: Esther and her unsolicited visit to King Xerxes. Selected as the queen of Persia out of a harem of lovely contenders. Eyes shaped like crescents, unblemished olive skin. In the ones I have seen, she is ravishingly gorgeous. Several films have been based on the story of Esther.
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