Esther 4:14: “For if you [Esther] remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?”

November 19th, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

At the request of Haman, the king issued a decree to destroy the Jews completely. But Mordecai had faith in God’s sovereign power to preserve His people because he knew God’s promise to Abraham back in Genesis 12:3: “I will bless those who bless you, / And I will curse him who curses you; / And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” Mordecai sent word to Esther that she must go to the king and plead for her people. Mordecai was painting Esther into a corner when he reminded her that she would not escape destruction just because of her prominence and that as a result her father’s name would also be lost.

However, with these remarkable words, Mordecai was pointing Esther to a higher calling than mere self-preservation: “Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” Could it be that everything in her life up to that point had been leading toward this defining moment? She was an orphaned girl, chosen to be a queen, and married to the most powerful monarch in the world; the very monarch who had agreed to the killing of all her people. Was her position merely an accident, the luck of the draw? God’s providence was at work and Mordecai had spoken great truth. It was not something Esther wanted to hear, but to her credit, she submitted to it.

What storm are you facing, fellow believer? What opportunities to serve are before you today or may be before you in the near future? Could it be that God has been preparing you all along for “such a time as this?” Are you prayed up and spiritually prepared to face the challenges at hand? It seems Esther had little choice when she was chosen to become part of the king’s harem, but she humbly submitted and ended up becoming the most powerful woman in the world. Once there, she did not use it for personal gain, but rather risked her life to obey God. We will probably have an opportunity today, for the sake of serving God and others, to put the needs of someone else ahead of our own. Esther had such an opportunity, and she chose the needs of others. And because of that she became a world changer. Do you want to be a spectator or a world changer?

“LORD, make us world changers for You this day by choosing the needs of others over our own desires.”