Before I teach another message this week, I thought I’d share the recap from last week since we blogged on it all week at the Grace website. You can check out the podcast also at http://gcc.libsyn.com 

Here are the four principles we learned from the story of Esther. 

God has a special plan for our life.

Proverbs 16:9, “In his heart a man plan’s his course, but the Lord determines his steps.”

God hasn’t made a mistake where He has us today.  I think we spend too long in our life trying to figure out where God wants us to be or wishing we were somewhere else, instead of just allowing God to do something with our life where we are and waiting for more to come.

Sometimes you will have to go against common sense, against what others advise, even against what you want to do in order to follow God’s plan.

Esther would have to approach the king, though she didn’t have permission…

This could have meant certain and sudden death for her since it was even against the law to approach the king.   Esther’s response: “If I perish, I perish!”

It’s ok to take risks for God.  The best things in life often come with the greatest risks. The degree of difficulty is not an indication that God is not in it. In fact, the opposite would be closer to truth. 

If it’s true God has something planned for your life, the time to get involved is now.

When was the last time you asked, God what do You want to do through my life?

Many times we are either afraid to ask, or even if the answer is clear we want some kind of proof that this is God’s plan for us.  We are afraid to simply walk by faith.

Here’s something I found interesting:  Esther 4:14  “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” NIV

We mostly consider that last part of the verse, but notice the “Who knows?”  It’s a question. They weren’t sure.  They knew she was in the position as queen. She had opportunity to see the King. They knew God wanted to save the people. They knew for whatever reason Esther had been made aware of the plan.  But did they know for sure that’s what Esther was supposed to do? 

Apparently not!  They went without being 100% certain.  Who knows? 

There will be times in your life when you’ve gathered all the information you can, you’ve prayed as well as you know how, you’ve sought Godly counsel; whatever you are doing is not sinful…but there is something inside of you that’s still not sure.

You can sleep on it.  That’s something I always do. Esther waited 3 days, but at some point you just have to muster the courage to move forward. Without all the answers, are you ready to step out and walk by faith?  Don’t be afraid to act by faith and allow God to determine the outcome.   

Trusting in God completely brings great rewards.

Esther saved a nation.  Her obedience saved God’s people from destruction! The reward for obedience is always better than expected. Esther went before the king prepared for the worst case scenario…she got the very best! It will always prove profitable in the long run to obey God.

Esther 8:17 In every province and in every city, wherever the edict of the king went, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them. NIV

Many people became followers of God!   The people were inspired by the faith of one woman and one man that everything changed in that nation.

When others see us living in radical obedience; obedience that makes no sense, they’ll want some of what we have. The world around you is looking for answers; trying to figure out how to make life work. We may not have all the answers, but we know about a God who does. 

My prayer for our church after studying this story is that we would make our own stories of courage; that we would, by faith, be willing to follow God wherever He leads us; as a church and as individuals. If God prompts us to move in a certain direction or He encourages us to do something, I pray that we would just do it!

Have you ever read something and wish you hadn’t?  That just happened to me.  While researching for message prep I stumbled on this blog post.  It’s not “new” information, just compiled in a way I haven’t seen; all in one neat, tidy, sobering place.  What to make of it?  Not sure yet.  I’m still processing it all. 

Check out what stirred my thoughts this morning at: http://faithwalk.wordpress.com/startling-statistics/

Today at Starbucks I encountered someone having a very bad day.  As I sat outside with my friend Rog for our every Thursday morning meeting, listening to the birds chirp as we talked about life, the struggles of ministry and God; there was a very angry and disappointed person working around us.  Apparently someone failed to put a trash liner in the trash can.  People had been throwing coffee cups, most of them with some remaining coffee in them, into this unlined container.  She had to clean up someone else’s mess.  It was obvious to us that she was having a very stressful day. 

My first thought was to criticize her.  How dare she ruin our time of leisure; our time we have reserved to talk about ”God things”!  Why get so upset about spilled coffee?  We were sharing stories of ministry; important stuff!  If she wanted to see stress; I could show her stress. 

Then something seemed to whisper in my ear.  This lady was having a stressful day.  From her perspective, with what she had planned to do today, this was an interuption.  It was unnecessary and stress-producing.  From her perspective this was huge.  I decided rather than think bad thoughts of her that I would pray for God to comfort her and turn her day for good. 

As I pulled away from Starbucks this morning that whisper appeared again.  Maybe my staff feels that way at times. Perhaps the volunteers sometimes get stressed with their responsibilities.  I may look at them and think, “What’s the big deal?”  To me it may seem like trivial stress, but to them it may be major stress.  It’s all a matter of perspective.

Maybe I need to take a lesson in leadership from Jesus.  He could recognize the seemingly little stress times; like running out of wine at a wedding ceremony; and the big stress times, like when a dear friend was facing execution.  He even handled his own stress with confidence; like when an entire ministry held in the balance of His very next move.  Regardless of the size of the stress moment Jesus brought comfort not chaos and handled the situation with a calm assurance; understanding that stress in all of our lives is always a matter of perspective. 

Esther was willing to risk her life to save a group of people….after a word of encouragement from her cousin Mordecai. Moses was willing to continue to lead the Israelites……after his father-in-law encouraged him to delegate. Paul was willing to proceed in ministry…….after Barnabas encouraged Paul by welcoming him. There are numerous examples in the Bible and in life where the encouragement of another was the motivation to endure and succeed.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the concept of encouragement; centering my thoughts on two questions. First, who am I encouraging; and, second, who is encouraging me?

Who am I encouraging?
Who is God placing in my path who needs that one word of encouragement to take the next steps of obedience to God? Who in my life needs to know they have what it takes, with God’s power, to live out the call God has on their life? Who do I need to remind that their current struggles can and will be mightily used by God to achieve a greater purpose? Am I openly seeking opportunities to invest in other people to encourage them in their life path?

Who is encouraging me?
It’s easy to become overwhelmed in ministry. Always pouring my life into other people sometimes leaves me feeling empty. From experience I know that I must be positioning myself in a way that allows others to encourage me. That sometimes means I have to bear my burdens to those outside the church, but I cannot escape this vital part of my life. I need encouragement too. We all do. (You do too!)

Ask yourself the questions I’ve been wrestling with lately? Who are you encouraging? Who is encouraging you?

I have been to Wal Mart twice in the last few days and both times the customer service was less than one would hope to receive from America’s number one retailer. It almost seems to be a trend these days. Could it be the king of discount has forgotten that what got them to where they are today is more than just low prices? Apparently I’m not alone in thinking that Wal Mart is slipping in the customer service area. This MSNBC story from last year explores the problem: http://tinyurl.com/5fpu9x. In my opinion, if Wal Mart doesn’t figure out how to bring customer service back “with a smile”, they may not always be this nation’s number one retailer.

I also feel a similar phenomenon is occurring with some mainline Christian denominations and churches today. Over the years they have grown in numbers, built larger buildings and added new programs, but they have neglected some fundamentals of the Christian faith. They have become almost country club-like atmospheres where real strugglers in life (which is really all of us) almost feel unwelcome in the church because they don’t “fit in” with the church’s strict guidelines and stands on certain issues. The concept of “love others” (where they are) has almost been replaced with “teach others” to be just like us. In my opinion, the future of these denominations and churches will be decided by their ability to get back to loving others as Christ has first loved us and allowing the “kindness of God to lead to repentance.”

http://www.christweb.com/MustardseedThoughts/FacingFear5.html

http://www.christweb.com/MustardseedThoughts/FacingFear4.html

Lots of fears out there from the emails yesterday. Here’s the second devotional in this series:

http://www.christweb.com/MustardseedThoughts/FacingFear1.html

God is at work even beyond the four walls we call our church. Sometimes we miss the big picture of what God is doing or wants to do through us because we become single-minded in our ministry. Over the years I have observed churches become ministries unto themselves rather than outward focused ministries. One reason we create so many programs in our churches is often so we can meet the growing demands of people inside the church hollering to be serviced.

The Jesus model seems opposite of that. He teaches us to consider others better than ourselves and to think about the needs of others ahead of our own. Somehow I believe this is a better method of attractional evangelism. When we begin to invest our resources into other people, even at the expense of our own comforts or desires, I think we will see more of a lost world get excited about the Kingdom of God and ultimately be won to Christ. It is then we will say like the prophet Malachi: “You will see it with your own eyes and say, ‘Great is the LORD-even beyond the borders of Israel!’” (Malachi 1:5)

God is good. Good is great…way beyond what we ever expected.

Yesterday I Twittered this question: Could your greatest fear be God’s greatest opportunity to express His glory through you?

I’ve often found in my life that the things I know God wants me to do are also the things I fear doing the most. Many times God has allowed me to get into situations where I’m “over my head” or “out of my league”, which scares me to death, but it’s also at those times that He seems to be doing or wants to do His best work through me. The challenge is to be walking close enough to God that I can sense His desire and direction for my life and then to obediently follow the path He lays out for me.

Lately I’ve been sensing some scary challenges God is laying before me. What will I allow to determine my next steps…my fear….or my faith in God’s ability to display His glory through my obedience?

Stay tuned.