Scripture Passage: Esther 4: 8-15

Esther is the only book of the Bible that does not mention the name of God. The unseen hand of God, however, is prevalent throughout the book. Esther was a part of a large group of Jews living in Persia. She was an orphaned girl raised by her older cousin Mordecai.

Though Esther was a Jew, she became the queen!

When Esther became a queen, Mordecai counseled her to kept silent about her ethnicity. Haman, the prime minister, despised the Jews — especially Mordecai. He plotted to destroy Mordecai’s entire race from the country. He manipulated the King to allow an edict to destroy all the Jews in every province of Persia. Mordecai believed Esther was the very best hope for the Jews to hold off extermination. Read his message to Esther in Esther 4:8-13.

Three Essential Decisions That Prepare Us for Kingdom Impact

Expect God to Use Your Pain | No matter how challenging our circumstances are, God can use them for our good! It could be that the challenges we are facing are the very things that God will use to impact our lives and the Kingdom. Search for Him in those difficult, challenging days

Read Esther 4: 14–16.

Realize Comfort is an Illusion | We must embrace the challenges in our lives in order for God to do His work. He will succeed in fulfilling His purposes, whether in our life or the life of someone else. Discomfort is a part of serving Jesus. We will have to stand for what is right, stand on the Word of God. If you do not, you will miss what God wants to do in your life.

Learn to Trust the Invisible | The Book of Esther beautifully establishes the picture of two competing kingdoms – the kingdom of man and the unmentioned (but constantly present) kingdom of God.

The entire book demonstrates God’s invisible hand at work. We never visually see the manifest power of God’s Kingdom but we see the evidence of it everywhere.

Through your challenges, God is at work behind the scenes. The beauty of the Kingdom of God is that the most significant, eternal, exhilarating rewards are for those who embrace the call to serve that which they cannot see!

A.B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance: “God is preparing His heroes and when the opportunity comes, He can fit them into their places in a moment, and the world will wonder where they came from.”

• Have you turned your challenges over to God?
• Are you embracing the work He wants to do in your life?

Trust Him today, it will change your life and the Kingdom.