Reading
SAA Notes
While the name of God is not mentioned in the book of Esther, His presence is the backdrop. The Biblical pattern is that when God’s people pray in their extremity, He answers by sending a man to save them. Even before Haman the Ammonite plots the destruction of the entire people of Israel, God is at work in the seeming chance happenings of a pagan court.
SJA Notes
* Lord God, You are the God who sent Yourself to shepherd Your people.
“And let the king give her royal position to another who is better than she.”
Here we have the story of God at work, bringing about good for His people.
His people are in exile, they are in a foreign land with foreign gods.
But the true God, our God, has told them to submit under His will for them, exile, and work for the good of the city and nation they find themselves in.
We see in the book of Esther different aspects of what it means to be God’s people in a broken world that rejects Him, that doesn’t know Jesus.
It is a good book for us to ready today, because it has great value for us living in this world.
God was at work bringing about the rising and falling of Queen Vashti, just as He is at work in the nations and their governments today.
* Father God,
Thank You that You continue to work for our good, as You have promised in Your word.
Please write Your word on our hearts, that we might not sin against You.
Please sink us in self that we might rise in You.
More of You, less of us!
Amen.