“And the king said, ‘Hang him on that.’ So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the wrath of the king abated. “ - Esther 7:10

He was blindfolded; he couldn’t see anything.  But what he heard and felt terrified him. His head was spinning with what had overtaken him. The plan had seemed to come together better than he had ever dreamt.  He had planned things out meticulously. 

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Things had fallen into place beautifully.  Not only was King Xerxes going to exterminate his enemies—the Hebrews—but there was hope that one particular Jew would get his comeuppance.  The arrogant Jew, Mordecai, was going to see that he should have been more…respectful.  

“Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish.”  - Esther 4:16

She’d been in turmoil for days.  Her stomach was in knots.  Her family and friends were in despair…they were on the verge of genocide.  An evil man had desired the annihilation of all the Hebrew people; through political cunning, he had legislated a governmental policy of ethnic cleansing.  For the time being she was safe, but none of her dearest relations were. 

Their world was about to end.

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“And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians 4:7

What is the result of the last post’s description of a lifestyle encompassed by expectant, petitionary prayer and thanksgiving?  A promise!  It is a “peace” that “guards” hearts and minds as they remain fixed on Jesus Christ.  Not only “a” peace, but His peace.  And not only His peace, but His peace which transcends all understanding!

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” - Philippians 4:6

Philippians 4:6 is one of the most well-known and certainly most quoted passages in Philippians.  And no wonder since in a modern day, anxiety-prone society we find God’s very real alternative to experiencing anxiety in just a few short verses.  While there is no doubt that these verses are applicable to our lives today, it appears that they were also applicable to the Philippians as well.

We live in a world where many view suffering as the primary indicator you are doing something wrong.  “You made a bad decision.” “You should have tried harder or prepared more."  Even when we view suffering through the lens of Christian faith, we hear similar reverberations.  “You don’t have enough faith.” “God must be judging you.”  While those are at times absolutely true, they can discredit the oft-neglected reason we suffer—for the good purposes of God.  Are we not called to persevere?  Are we not called to fight against the affliction of this present life?

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.  For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.  When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” -Colossians 3:1-4

It is possible to do all the right things in all the wrong ways. You may already know this, but it is something very easy to forget. It, therefore, ought to come as no surprise that we find warnings about this very thing throughout Scripture, especially in the Prophets. It is put perhaps most poignantly in the first chapter of Isaiah:

10            “Hear the word of the LORD,

                                    you rulers of Sodom!

                   Give ear to the teaching of our God,

                                    you people of Gomorrah!

As I was strolling in the Gastown section of Vancouver, British Columbia, I came across a storefront with a t-shirt on display that read: “I’m sorry for what I said when I was hungry.” I posted a photo on both Instagram and Facebook and received quite a number of likes. I deduced two conclusions from this: 1) many of my friends know what it’s like to be “hungry;” and 2) our appetites have a lot more control over us than we care to admit.

I’ll illustrate my point with a headline I read in The New York Times in mid-July: “Amazon, a Friendly Giant as Long as It’s Fed.” You could replace “Amazon” with “Kevin” and the statement would be no less accurate. Perhaps this is true for you, too.

1 Chronicles 21:1-2 says: “Satan stood up against Israel and incited David to count [the people of] Israel. So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, ‘Go and count Israel from Beer-sheba to Dan and bring [a report] to me so I can know their number.” After God has caused David to become successful in the eyes of both his enemies as well as the nation of Israel, Satan then comes and tempts David to take ownership of something that is not rightfully his. In other words, just as Satan tempted Adam and Eve in Genesis 3, he also successfully tempts David to distrust God by putting down the mantle of stewardship and putting on the mantle of ownership.

Nevertheless, notice God’s mercy through Joab in 1 Chronicles 21:3: “Joab replied, ‘May the Lord multiply the number of His people a hundred times over! My lord the king, aren’t they all my lord’s servants? Why does my lord want to do this? Why should he bring guilt on Israel?” and verse 4 continues with the heavy and sobering words: “Yet the king’s order prevailed over Joab…” This is a solemn reminder that although God’s desire is to extend grace and mercy into our lives, we often forsake His mercy in order to satisfy our own desires; this is why repentance is needed. Repentance is not just to restore a right relationship with God, but it is the means by which we humbly admit our sins before God, much like David in Psalm 51:4: “Against You - You alone - I have sinned and done this evil in Your sight. So You are right when You passed sentence; You are blameless when You judge…”

Hebrews 10:32-11:3

The Word of God is full of paradoxical statements, such as: “If anyone wants to be first, he must be last of all and servant of all” (Mark 9:35); “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me and the gospel will save it” (Mark 8:35); “….whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first among you must be a slave to all. For even the Son of Man did come to be served, but to serve, and give His life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:43-45). Many of the aforementioned teachings of Jesus are commonly referred to as paradoxical teachings. According to the Merriam Webster’s dictionary, a paradox is “something that is made up of two opposite things that seem impossible but is actually possible.” In other words, a paradox is a seemingly self-contradictory statement containing truth that joins two opposites.

“And the Lord your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your offspring, so that you will love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul, that you may live…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 30:6,19-20

Every morning I face a real choice.  Do I spring out of my bed at 6 am when the alarm goes off to meet with the Lord in His Word and prayer before work, or do I hit ‘snooze,’ enjoy the weight of my down comforter and drift back into sweet slumber for another hour?  This has been no small matter for me over the past year, and sleep has regretfully won out more times than I would like to admit.  But when I immediately throw off the covers at the sound of the alarm, I have the sense that “today I win!”

Matthew 9:1-8 reads:

“And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.  And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”  But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”  And he rose and went home.  When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

I have been thinking a lot about what must have been going through the mind of John the Baptist when he was in prison and sent a messenger to ask Jesus if He was the Messiah:  “Now when John heard in prison about the deeds of the Christ, he sent word by his disciples and said to him, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” (Matthew 11:2-3).

I’m imagining the feelings of deep loneliness, despair, and fear in his heart as he sat in prison with his death sentence approaching.  It’s fascinating that he, the greatest prophet, the forerunner of the long-anticipated Messiah, the one who stood at the dawn of the inaugurated Kingdom, had heavy doubts about Christ skipping frantically through his mind.

I recently returned to Princeton, New Jersey, from a trip to Nepal where I spent one week serving in Kathmandu and one week sharing the Gospel in a region called Sarlahi with a team of native Christians.  I returned home with tears in my eyes, as I had to say goodbye to a group of people that I came to love so deeply. Even now, I find tears running down my cheeks when I think about how long it might be until I get to visit that beautiful land once again.  Regardless of the attachment I formed with the people and the nation, my experience there was marked far more by discomfort and unease than it was by enjoyment and excitement.

It didn’t take much more than a day for me to recognize my deep desire for familiarity and to be in a place where I could predict the cultural, social, political, and religious climate.  Nepal definitely is not a place where safety is a guarantee or where Western norms are particularly welcome, and for these reasons, fear crept increasingly into my heart as the days progressed.

There are no atheists in foxholes.

This common adage speaks to one of the clearest misconceptions of life, especially life in the modern world. That is the misconception of security. We fancy ourselves the masters of our futures, the controllers of our fate. We think that modern medicine promises us long lives, that the American economy promises us comfort and prosperity, that the moral scruples of the educated elite promises us freedom from consequences. Reality begs to differ.

“When I came to you, brothers, I didn’t come with excellence of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not in persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith wouldn’t stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.” - 1 Corinthians 2:1-5

What is power? In our world, a world of corporate takeovers, multi-million dollar political campaigns, and relational manipulation, we are no strangers to the quest for, and the procurement of, what we perceive to be power. As participants in this world, we feel the temptation to pursue authority in various forms and numerous guises; God’s Word confronts all of these quests for power.

In his book, The Revival and its Lessons, Dr. James W. Alexander is careful to point out that every work of revival has its own “peculiarities…arising from acknowledged diversities in the sovereign dispensation of the Spirit.”  In the case of the revival which took place in New York, it “was not the result of human project, concerted arrangement, or prescribed plan.  It was not an excitement foreseen, predicted, and made to order.”

“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”  - Psalm 85:6

Between 1857-1858, one of the great revivals to take place on American soil occurred in the city of New York.  Revival soon spread to countless locations throughout the United States. A number of eyewitness accounts of the revival were published.  One of the earliest came from the pen of Dr. James W. Alexander, Pastor of the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church.  A graduate of the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University), Alexander had served his alma mater as a tutor in mathematics and classical languages and subsequently as Professor of Rhetoric and Belles Lettres.  Having taught at Princeton Theological Seminary for a brief time, most of Alexander’s public life was spent in pastoral ministry.  At the time of the New York revival, Alexander was considered one of the great preachers of the nineteenth century.

Fasting is often used, both in the Bible and today, as a way to cultivate humility. Today, we will consider one of Scripture’s best examples of humility: Mary.  Her song to the Lord in Luke 1:46-55 (the “Magnificat”) starts like this:

“My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”