Today's passage from the Bible In a Year Reading Plan is Esther 6-8; Luke 13:1-22
In our reading from Esther, the wickedness of Haman stood out to me. He was evil and selfish. His selfishness blinded him and made him look stupid. In Esther 6:7-9 Haman believes the king is asking him what honour the king should give to himself, when in fact the king was asking Haman what honour he should give to Mordecai, who was Haman's enemy.
Verses 7-9: "So he answered the king, “For the man the king delights to honor, [8] have them bring a royal robe the king has worn and a horse the king has ridden, one with a royal crest placed on its head. [9] 9 Then let the robe and horse be entrusted to one of the king’s most noble princes. Let them robe the man the king delights to honor, and lead him on the horse through the city streets, proclaiming before him, ‘This is what is done for the man the king delights to honor !’ ”
This backfired on Haman, who must have been seething when Mordecai received these honours, and not himself. Do we ever think we're better than we really are?
Later on in chapter 8:17 we read how many people claimed to be Jews when in fact they weren't, because they now feared the Jews and were scared of going against them.
17: In every province and in every city to which the edict of the king came, there was joy and gladness among the Jews, with feasting and celebrating. And many people of other nationalities became Jews because fear of the Jews had seized them
When the end times arrive many will quickly try and claim to know Jesus as their personal saviour, but it will be too late. They will see then how wrong they were to reject God. Do we take our personal relationship with Jesus seriously? Will we have regrets one day? These are tough questions and answers, for myself I know I can always do more and work harder. My prayer is to keep moving forward and growing in my faith, and to have my actions change as I grow.
In Luke 13:10-17 we read about how Jesus healed a women on the Sabbath and how someone had a problem with Him healing on a holy day. It seems we read many times how Jesus performs a miracle on the Sabbath and then how it offends someone, this sounds like our society today where someone is always getting offended!
Does Jesus do this to get a rise out of the religious leaders at the time? Would he get a chuckle out of their foolishness? I don't think so, but He does make an important point, we need to be living for Him seven days a week.
4 comments:
The irony of the Mordecai/Haman saga shows that God has a sense of humour!
Talk about a reversal of fortune! It made me think of the coming judgement day..... It sometimes seems like evil is winning, but when Jesus returns it will bring about a reversal so drastic we can gadfly imagine it now.
Good point about them being offended about a Sabbath healing. Here Jesus had just performed an amazing miracle, transforming a life forever, and their first thought is that it might violate the Sabbath?! Really?!
*hardly, not gadfly
I found it comical how Haman was putting together his recognition dream only to have his dream into action towards Mordecai, the man he wanted impaled.
Out NT reading, reminded me of the importance of repentance. None of us are perfect, or even better than anyone else. We all need forgiveness.
I think it is ironic that Haman died on the gallows he built to kill Mordecai. How that must have been so hard for him to swallow when Mordecai received the honours and Mordecai kept his life when Haman himself lost it.
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