Weekly Reflection 11/6/23

Esther part 7 – “With Him or against Him, the choice is yours.”

“Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” Luke‬ 11‬:23‬ ESV‬‬‬

Jesus is not making this statement because He is trying to be tough or discouraging, He’s making this statement out of love, kindness and patience. He’s making this statement because He desires you and I to be with Him. Jesus wants us to see and consider the significance of our decision to either join Him or oppose Him. There are only two choices, with or against, and Jesus wants us to choose life and blessing with Him. 

““See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you today, by loving the Lord your God, by walking in his ways, and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live and multiply, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to take possession of it. But if your heart turns away, and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today, that you shall surely perish. You shall not live long in the land that you are going over the Jordan to enter and possess. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore choose life, that you and your offspring may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice and holding fast to him, for he is your life and length of days, that you may dwell in the land that the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.”” Deuteronomy‬ 30‬:15‬-20‬ ESV‬‬‬‬‬‬

God’s sovereignty and our responsibility.

       In Esther we see the interplay between human responsibility and divine sovereignty.  “For if you keep silent at this time (Esther has a choice to make), relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place (God’s sovereign plan), but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”” (Esther‬ 4‬:14‬ ESV)‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ In chapters 5 and 7 we that Esther’s plan and decisions were a necessary part of the process of saving the Jewish people and bringing Haman to justice, a plan that required a combination of subtlety, boldness, and strength to carry it through.  Yet Esther’s decision by itself was not what turned around the fortunes of God’s people. The writer of the story has shown us this by making the king’s sleepless night the hinge on which the whole story turns. The key event, the sleepless night, had nothing to do with Esther or Mordecai, but instead was a seemingly insignificant detail in which the hidden hand of providence can be seen. God is sovereign, the irony is that God in His sovereignty allows us to choose whether we will join Him in what He is doing or if we will be against Him in what He is doing. Our choice will not prevent or enable God to accomplish what He purposes to accomplish; our choice will determine if we are with Him or against Him, life or death, blessing or curse.

“Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” (Psalm‬ 127‬:1‬ ESV)‬‬‬‬‬ This verse shows that yes, the house doesn’t get built apart from God, but also that He desires to use us to labor and be the builders.

It is significant that the pivotal chapter in the book, from which Esther is entirely absent, is bracketed by two chapters that show her diligently using all of the means at her disposal to bring about the desired end. God’s sovereign act is the turning point, but God works through the faithful efforts of His people. 

Examples from James:

How do we get more grace?

Maybe you’re thinking I need more of God’s grace in my life, I need help. We should all be thinking that. God is always offering grace, offering help, offering wisdom, offering strength, offering rest, but it is our decision to ask for, receive, and utilize that releases those gifts into our lives. The beginning of James 4:6 says, God gives more grace. So, is that it? I want more grace and poof there it is. “But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”” James‬ 4‬:6‬ ESV‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬ So this grace seems to be conditioned upon something, being humble, the humble receive grace. The next question we should be asking is, “If God gives more grace to the humble, how do I become a humble person?” Do we just pray and ask God to humble us, and poof we’re humble? James 4:10 fills us in, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.” What the Word of God teaches, is that we are to make the decision to humble ourselves. Humility comes by an inward decision. That’s what it is. No one can make that decision for you. You can humble yourself. When we have made that decision, a real determined choice, to humble ourselves, to stop living for ourselves, to live for God’s purposes, God’s way, then God exalts us and gives us grace. It’s our decision to be humble that joins us with God’s desire to give us more grace.

How do you resist the devil or fight sin in your life.

Is it by a prayer, “God please take this sin out of my life”, or “God help me not to do that again”, and then you just sit back and do nothing and expect God to sort of zap you? James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.” God doesn’t force you to submit to Him, you make a choice, I believe moment by moment we can make a choice whether or not we choose to submit to God. Maybe this is oversimplifying this but submitting to God is making the choice, “I will obey God because I trust Him and His Word.” And resisting the devil is making the choice, “I will not go along with what the devil wants me to do because I know he is a liar, a thief, and a murderer.”  

Submitting and resisting are real choices you can make, but you have to make them, determine in your heart, I will obey and trust God and I am not going to go along with the schemes of the devil. It’s in those decisions to submit and resist that we receive God’s strength and help, and His Word becomes powerful in our lives to overcome sin and make the enemy flee.

“It is your decisions, and not your circumstance, that determine your destiny.” 

• If we desire to reach a specific destination, then we are going to have walk and make decisions that point in the direction that leads us to that destination. 
• “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” Galatians‬ 6‬:7‬-8‬ ESV‬‬‬‬‬‬
• Our harvest is going to be based on the seeds (decisions) that we sow, if we continue to sow to satisfy our own sinful nature and to disobey God, then we will reap decay and death.  But if we make the decision to sow to the spirit, we will reap eternal life.