It's not about me! Esther 7&8

Read Esther 7.
At the second banquet the king again asks Esther what she would like. What does she ask for this time?

Clearly angered by what happened the king asks: who did this?

The king walks out to the garden, maybe to control his anger, maybe to figure out what to do. Either way, what does he see as he walks back into the room?

What does Harbonah tell the king?



Read Esther 8.
What does the king give to Esther and Mordecai?


Esther goes before the king another time and falls at his feet begging. What is she asking him for?

What does King Xerxes do and then say in response?


What does the edict/letter say about the Jews (or give them permission to do)?


So how about this story?? It’s been quite interesting, hasn’t it? 

 In chapter 4, Mordecai gives Esther this pivotal piece of advice that we didn’t really talk about. In the ACV (Amber Carter Version) Mordecai says, “It’s not about you! You can chose to be the person He uses to save the Jews. But if you don’t they will be rescued by God somehow. Maybe the whole reason you became queen is for this moment.” The chapter ended and we didn’t know what Esther was going to do.
Now we’ve read what happens. We know she does risk her life to go before the king and plead for the salvation of the Jews. That resulted in Haman being destroyed, but not the salvation of the Jews. Esther risks her life a second time in chapter 8 to again plead for the salvation of the Jews. For a second time, the king reaches out the golden scepter and grants her her request.
Esther realizes “It’s not about me!” and does what she can to save her people. She put aside the very real danger she faced to do what she could.
Sometimes we make long-term commitments to live for Christ and not ourselves. Sometimes it’s commitments that require some sacrifice to put others first. But sometimes it’s a big risky commitment. Esther faced death and still decided to live for God and not herself.

 It’s hard to apply this. You are not queen of a country. You don’t have life or death choices before you. We never know when that sort of situation may come up. When I was in 10th grade, there was a school shooting at Columbine High School that I believe is still the deadliest shooting that has occurred in the US. There were two girls who were Christians that were killed and with guns to their head were asked if they believed in God. They could have easily said no to save their lives and didn’t. That was like the go-to example for a message like this when I was in high school. That could happen - how would you respond?

 I think a more likely situation is being faced with decisions where we risk leaving our comfort zones. Do you stand up for what’s right when there is risk involved?
Write about a time that you chickened out of doing what was right because you thought it was too risky.



Write about a time where you did what was right even when it was risky.




 .




So today is our last day and we are basically at the end of the story. There are still two chapters left though. In the next few days, read over them and see what happens. Basically we are just told about when the day arrives that the Jews are to be killed and how they protect themselves and fight back and then about the festival/feast set up to commemorate that day. But seriously take the time to read them so you can get God’s version of how the story ends instead of mine!




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In August, we spent a week at Word of Life in New York doing some work projects. These are devotionals on the book of Esther and the theme "It's not about me!"

It's not about me! Esther 3

Read Esther 3.
Who is Haman?

What did Mordecai do to make Haman angry?

Because he is mad at Mordecai, what does Haman decide to do?

What year of King Xerxes reign did this happen?

And Esther was selected to be queen in the _______th year, so this is _______ years later.

 Does the king ask Haman any questions before giving approval?


What day were the scribes summoned to write the letters for the couriers to deliver?

Lev. 23:5 In the first month, on the fourteenth day of the month at twilight, is the LORD's Passover. 
Passover was the biggest celebration of the Jews all year. The day before Passover they got a letter saying they were going to be killed on a particular day basically about a year from then. Can you imagine getting a letter on Christmas Eve saying next December you and all of your family are going to die?! That would certainly put a huge damper on all the Christmas festivities. I imagine that’s very much like how the Jews would have felt about this news right before Passover. (This has nothing to do with our theme, it’s just crazy to me! What awful timing!)

 What did King Xerxes and Haman do while this news was being delivered to the Jews?

In the introduction to Mordecai in this chapter we yet again see him making a decision that is right but could come with some consequences. We should not be bowing down and worshiping any one or thing besides God. Mordecai knows that, and also knows that there could be consequences to not bowing down if Haman finds out. 

 I bet you already figured out that Haman is a bad example! Haman is so full of himself. He gets promoted to a pretty powerful position and just lets it go to his head. Seriously, he decides to annihilate all of the Jews because one Jew doesn’t bow down and honor him.
Haman is not portrayed as being very likeable. One time when we were teaching this story in Sunday School, the teens all booed or hissed every time they heard his name mentioned. But he didn’t start out as a bad guy. In order for the king to have promoted him to his position, I think that he had to have been doing things right. He had qualities that King Xerxes recognized and made Xerxes think this guy should be promoted.
But at some point that changes and Haman starts thinking “It’s all about me!” He has people start bowing down to him, sure it’s at the king’s command, but Haman didn’t have to let that happen. And he gets irrationally upset when he isn’t bowed down to. It isn’t normal to get upset at one person and then decide to eliminate their entire race as a result. He’s so insistent upon it that he also offers the king a huge bribe to be sure Xerxes will approve it.
I think the craziest part of everything he does is that he sits down with the king to drink. While the Jews all throughout the land are learning about their pending destruction, Haman sits and has a beer with the king. 

 Much of what we learn not to do from Haman in this chapter is similar to what we discussed about King Xerxes about pride and humility. Something different though is that if we realize “It’s not all about me!” we should not take things personally and forgive people. Haman took offense to what Mordecai did and as a result made bad decisions. The Bible is full of commands for us to love others and to forgive others. The only way we can do those things is if we recognize “It’s not all about me!”
Write about a time that you tried to get revenge instead of forgiving someone.



Write about a time that you forgave someone even though they hurt you..



1 John 4:7  Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

 Eph. 4:32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

 Phil. 2:3-4 Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

 Matt. 6:14 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you,
What do these verses tell us about “It’s not all about me!”?


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In August, we spent a week at Word of Life in New York doing some work projects. These are devotionals on the book of Esther and the theme "It's not about me!"

It's not about me! Esther 2

Read Esther 2.

So some time has passed since King Xerxes had his party and disposed of Queen Vashti. More than likely he had been off battling in Greece (history tells us he was defeated in battle around this time) and was now home and longing for his queen.
How is a new queen selected?


Who is Mordecai?


Our main character, Esther, is introduced. What do we learn about her?





What year of King Xerxes reign is Esther selected as queen?


Look back at 1:3. What year of King Xerxes reign is the party where Vashti is disposed of as queen?

Easy math: How many years have passed then?

Where was Mordecai when he overheard the plot to assassinate the king?

Who did he report it to?


Mordecai seems to be a guy who realizes “It’s not all about me!” The first spot he demonstrates this is in verse 7 where he takes Esther in as his own daughter. This isn’t just babysitting on occasion. This is putting aside his thoughts for how his life would be and taking in his cousin to raise as his own. That’s a long term commitment! It can be tough to get enough volunteers to commit to a week of VBS or to even giving up a week to come on this trip and here Mordecai makes a commitment to raise his cousin.
Right now you’re not in a situation where you would have to make a commitment to raise a kid, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other lifelong commitments you could/should make.
Have you ever come to the point where you realized “It’s not all about me!” and given your life to Christ? Yes or No? Hopefully you all circled yes for that and if not, put this down and go find a leader to talk to about that right now! But beyond giving your life to Christ and knowing that you’ll be in heaven one day, have you really committed your life to Him long-term?

At some point in high school, I realized that although I had gotten saved when I was a kid that I didn’t really do anything about it. I knew I was going to heaven and just kind of did whatever  I wanted. Nothing real crazy, but I didn’t really live out the things I learned at church. In order to be committed to Christ long-term, there should be fruit (evidence of Him) in my life. I should be reading my Bible daily, praying constantly, attending church regularly, serving and constantly applying the things I learn to be more and more like Christ. Why? Because it’s not all about me. It’s all about Him!
So again, have you really committed your life to Him long-term? Why or why not?




The second time where Mordecai shows he knows “It’s not all about me!” is when he stops the attempted assassination. Mordecai could have ignored what he heard and been fine. It wasn’t his responsibility to protect the king. However, it was the right thing to do and so he reported it regardless of the consequences it had. 
Sometimes we just ignore things because they don’t make an impact on us one way or the other. You see trash on the ground, but walk by cause you didn’t drop it. You hear a kid getting picked on, but just watch and do nothing. You see food on Pastor Rob’s face before he’s about to preach, but don’t mention it. There is definitely a right thing to do in each of these scenarios if you realize it’s not all about you, and put the needs of others above your own. 
James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Write about a time that you ignored something because it didn’t really affect you.


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In August, we spent a week at Word of Life in New York doing some work projects. These are devotionals on the book of Esther and the theme "It's not about me!"

It's not about me! Esther 1

Like Autumn said, this week we’re going to read through the book of Esther. Make sure you actually read the chapters so God can teach you through His word. His word is way more important than anything Kirsten, Autumn or I have to say.
After you read the passage, there will be some questions to help you remember what you read and the story overall. Answer them, reread if you need to.
Then we will spend some time discussing how the chapter relates to our theme for the week, “It’s not all about me!”

Read Esther 1.

So depending on what version you are reading the King is either named Ahasuerus or King Xerxes. He’s the same guy; don’t be confused when we talk about Xerxes if your version says Ahasuerus. What does King Xerxes do for 180 days?


Right after that he invites a bunch of people for a banquet which lasted how many days?


What does King Xerxes ask Queen Vashti to do?


Does she do it?


King Xerxes then asks his wise men what the law says he should do. What do they tell him?




Interesting first chapter, huh? The king has a weeklong drinking party and asks the queen to come do some scantily clad dancing for them. She says no. And as a result, the king’s counsel tells him to replace Vashti as queen and also make it a law that wives need to honor their husbands. This first chapter (along with some of the others we are going to read) leaves me scratching my head thinking, “What just happened?!”

As we read through Esther we are going to see some people who are good examples of understanding, “It’s not all about me!” and some bad examples as well.  In this first chapter we definitely see bad examples!
King Xerxes starts off with 180 days (6 months!) of showing off his riches. Clearly he’s rather prideful to need to do so much showing off. He wanted people, whether it was his own people or foreigners, to see his riches and to be impressed by it. It boosted his ego to have people impressed by his stuff.
When we forget that “it’s not all about me!” we can easily become self-centered and prideful. We want to show off the things we have, whether it’s new clothes, new phones, or some other new fancy gadget. Or we make sure people know how lucky we are that we get to do fun experiences. We try to make ourselves feel better by showing off so we get praise from people.
Sadly this is something we all do from time to time. Write about a time you tried to show off new things or talk about fun experiences just to get praise from people. 



The next bad example that we see of “It’s not all about me!” is King Xerxes asking Queen Vashti to come into a room of drunk men to display herself. He again is thinking only about himself. People who are all about themselves are not all about other people. Not once did King Xerxes think about the impact this would make on Queen Vashti. When we focus only on ourselves, we don’t think about the impact our decisions are going to have on others. Pride puts others to make ourselves feel better. Write about a time you made a decision that negatively impacted someone else.




The other people in this chapter who don’t realize “It’s not all about me!” are the wise men the king gets advice from. When King Xerxes asks them what to do about the queen, they think about themselves. They think their wives will start rebelling against them. So out of fear they tell the king that a law should be made saying women must honor their husband. Because they want it to be all about them, they fear it won’t stay all about them. Pride doesn’t let us share the spotlight with others. Write about you a time you tried to keep the spotlight on yourself instead of sharing it with others.



We all forget at times that “It’s not all about me!” However, the Bible warns us in many places about the dangers of pride and tells us to be humble.
1 John 2:15-16 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world.

 Prov. 11:2 When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with the humble is wisdom. 

What do these verses tell us about “It’s not all about me!”?


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In August, we spent a week at Word of Life in New York doing some work projects. These are devotionals on the book of Esther and the theme "It's not about me!"

jeep knees

Eating sugar cane in the DR

In 2010, I went to the Philippines; it was an awesome trip. I loved getting to experience a different culture, try new food, meet lots of new people, and have some adventures (scuba diving, ziplining, riding jeepneys).

I’ll be honest, food in a different country is one of my favorite things. In Ecuador we ate popcorn with soup, avocado served with French fries and of course guinea pig. In the Philippines, we had lots of fresh tilapia, pancit and rambutans to name a few. Fresh fruits and veggies in foreign countries are always amazing! I still daydream about walking around a farm in the Dominican Republic trying all sorts of things—sugar cane, cashew fruit, cacao. In the Philippines, the mango was my favorite!

Philippine fruit: mango stein, lansones, pineapple,
 marang, rambutans, bananas and pomelo.

When I came home I looked in all sorts of grocery stores, but could not find it. Maybe two years later, I found some dried Philippine Mango; I was thrilled! I told people about it, bought it and made them try it. Another year or two later, I found fresh Philippine mango in Giant! I again told people and bought it and shared it! (One time when I was in Giant, a lady saw me picking it up and asked me about it. I probably gave her way more info than she wanted, but she ended up buying some to try.)

James 2:14 What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? 15 If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, 16 and one of you says to them, "Go in peace, be warmed and filled," without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that? 17 So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. 

Having faith in God saves us. We’ve talked about this a lot throughout our devos on Galatians. Our salvation is about putting our faith and trust in God, not about circumcision or any other work we do. In Ephesians, Paul says “by grace you have been saved by faith, not of works.”

In Luke 23:39-43, we are told about the thief on the cross repenting and believing while hanging there. He wasn’t baptized or able to do any works, but Jesus told him that he’d be in Paradise that day.

So what’s all this James is saying about faith without works being dead??

Philippine Mango!!

It’s like the mango – I know it’s good and want others to enjoy it. So I tell them about it, give them some to try. I’m not going to keep it to myself.

If you have experienced God’s grace and have been saved, you’re not going to keep that to yourself. You’ll want to tell others about it… do things to help them experience the same thing you have experienced.

So God doesn’t require us to do works to be saved, but our salvation and love for Him should compel us to want to do works. In John 14:15, Jesus says “If you love me you will keep my commandments.”

Answer This:

1) Have you put your faith in Christ and been saved by God’s grace? If so, write the story of when/how here. If not, talk to your parents or a youth leader about how to do so!

2) So also ____________ by itself, if it does not have ____________, is ____________.

3) Do you talk about your faith? Do others see your works and therefore your faith?

4) Take some time to journal about this passage.

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Written  for the youth group devotional book.

We Keep Accountable Because We Love

Do you have one of those friends who tells you what you don't want to hear? Like the little angel sitting on your
shoulder pointing out to you why you shouldn't make whatever dumb decision you're about to make?

At one point in college, I was going through a bit of a rough time and as a result, I wasn't reading my Bible or praying – I was just going through the motions. One of my roommates called me on it. To this day, I can still hear her telling me that I needed to change – "Good Christian girls can get pregnant before they're married, pastors can have affairs and leave their families..." If you don't live for God daily, you can end up like that too…

We Spend Time With Because We Love

If you were stranded on a desert island, who would you want to be stuck with?


My guess is either answered with Leif or Scott because they'd build you a shelter and catch you food. OR you answered with one of your closest friends because that's a lot of time you'll be spending together and you want to be with someone you like.

Time is something we all value and are often careful with how we use it. When people make the time to hang with us in whatever capacity, it lets us know that they love us.

Read Luke 10:38-42.

There are three characters in the story, who are they and what are they doing?
1)

2)

3)

When Martha asks Jesus to make Mary help, he tells her, "there's only one thing worth being concerned about." (Luke 10:42a NLT). What is that one thing?


Mary opted to spend time with Jesus. Jesus said that was better than worrying about cooking and cleaning and everything else. (That's not to say those other things don't matter, my last devo was on serving… We just got to keep things in check.)

The New Testament is full of passages that talk about "one-anothering"… It's a kind of silly phrase but it groups together all these different verbs that we are to do for or with one another… Love one another, serve one another, instruct one another, forgive one another, encourage one another, confess to one another… in order to do these things, we must spend time with one another. "So then, as we have the opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith." (Gal. 6:10 ESV). We spend time with others because we love them.

Have you ever watched White Wolves? For those of you that haven't had the privilege, a group of teens and their leader go on a backpacking trip, very much like the wilderness trip, with less canoeing. Their goal is to get to the top of Eagle Rock. They eventually make it to the top and disaster strikes! Their trip turns into a rescue mission and they go through struggle after struggle on the way. In the beginning of the movie, Pandra tells Kara she likes Adam. As the movie goes on, Kara and Adam continually end up spending time together, they raft together, sit together at campfires, etc. They develop a deeper relationship because they spend time together. We just need to make sure the people we choose to spend time with our good people… What does 1 Corinthians 15:33 say about this?


There's one more thing we can learn from the story of Mary and Martha – we spend time with God because we love him. Jesus wasn't just any old friend Mary was hanging out with. If you look back at Luke 10:39, it says she was listening to His word. If we love Jesus, we will spend time reading His word and praying. We can't know Him and His will for our lives without spending time with Him. "If you love me, he will keep my commandments." (John 14:15 ESV). 

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This is a devotional I wrote for the teens on the Ecuador missions trip. Our theme for the devotionals is "We _____ because we love." We came up with a list of 11 (one for each day), and this is one I was assigned.

Evangelism...

Evangelism... probably not anyone's favorite word. We don't like doing it because we fear people's opinion more than we should. It's just awkward... Just last week, I even read an article put out by Relevant magazine about Why We Don't Evangelize Anymore.

As you may know, we went to NYC and did some street evangelism with the teens back in August. I did not want to do it. Seriously, who wants to walk up to a stranger anywhere, let alone New York City, and start talking to them about Jesus. I tried to figure out how I could weasel my way out of that part of the trip and just join the group for the work projects but finally decided it was all or nothing and went for the whole trip, evangelism and all.

You’re Keeping Me Going

Ever watch White Wolves?  My new goal in life is to incorporate this movie every time I write a devo… since starting I’ve got a 50% success rate… not too bad ;) I’ve already given you a brief synopsis of the movie in case you haven’t seen it. So after the trip has become a rescue mission, there is yet another injury and it gets to the point that the whole group just can’t travel on anymore. In the middle of the night, Benny decides he’s going to go off alone and get help. Pandra catches him as he’s packing up and asks him what he’s doing. He explains his plan is to hike an old lava flow, cross an old bridge then white water raft the Lone Pine. Pandra tells him he can’t do it alone that it’s class 4 rapids and she’ll join him. As they are hiking along, Pandra trips and Benny tells her they can stop for the night and she says she’s fine and she doesn’t want to slow him down. To which he replies, “You’re not slowing me down, you’re keeping me going.” After awkwardly glancing at each other, she says, “Then let’s keep going.” And they continue on.

More Than You Can Handle

There is SO much good stuff in Perry Noble’s book and there is SO much more we can learn from David’s life too. So I only got to write two of the devos this week, but I easily could have written more! I wanted to share with you a little bit more that you can maybe go and do once you return home. Maybe it will help the spiritual high of this trip to last a little bit longer. If you read through this, share your thoughts with me. Send me an email or fb message or a good old fashioned phone call :)

Did I ever tell you about the crazy adventures Jeff, Hil and I had going to Georgia for the Catalyst conference last October? Jeff ‘borrowed’ a pumpkin from outside this gift shop we went to… we found the CRAZIEST/STRANGEST yard with all sorts of monsters/creatures/body and even helped the owner move a 6-ft tall hand into a guy’s truck… we had dinner in Alabama so I could add another state to my list of visited states (which means I’m currently beating my brother and father)… Hil and I rode a pirate ship… We had sushi with Sharla Megilligan (one of the missionaries we support)… But most of you probably didn’t hear about those things.

Your Heart’s Desire

I love the Chronicles of Narnia! I think The Magician’s Nephew is probably my favorite (with The Voyage of Dawn Treader being a close second). Towards the end of book Aslan (who is the God character in the book) sends Digory (young boy from our world who ends up in Narnia) on a mission to get an apple from this garden at the far end of Narnia. Once this apple is planted it will protect Narnia from the evil empress. However, when he gets to the garden he sees this sign:

Time-Out

Ever watch White Wolves? For those of you that haven't had the privilege, a group of teens and their leader go on a backpacking trip, very much like the wilderness trip, with less canoeing. Their goal is to get to the top of Eagle Rock. They eventually make it to the top and disaster strikes! Their trip turns into a rescue mission and they go through struggle after struggle on the way. At one point, after yet another plan doesn’t work out as anticipated, Kara gets overwhelmed and yells out, “No, I can’t do this anymore, I wanna go home!”

Do you ever feel that way? Things get frustrating or scary or hard and you’d rather give up than keep going?

Bringing People to Jesus

Become who you are…

Ever feel like you can’t really relate to people in the Bible? I mean God isn’t sending angels with messages for me, He hasn’t asked me to build a boat, I’m not the Queen of Persia or King of Israel, I’m not a prophet, I’m not leaving everything I have to serve Him full-time. Now that’s not to say we can’t learn from people we can’t relate to but sometimes I just wonder where the normal people are.

As I was reading and looking into Peter I started reading about his brother. Anyone know his brother’s name?

Yea off the top of my head I don’t think I would’ve gotten that one right. In case you don’t know, his brother is Andrew. Now yesterday we talked about Peter being an ordinary guy that God was able to use to do great things. But seriously even Peter is hard to relate to… you ever walk on water? Cut off a guard’s ear? Have Jesus wash your feet? Preach a message to thousands? Heal a lame guy? Have a dream about eating cows and chicken? Ok maybe you’ve done that last one, but I’m pretty sure that’s it. So even though Peter started out as a pretty ordinary guy, he did things that may make us feel it’s hard to relate to him. But enough about Peter, we’re talking about Andrew today. Now when you think about Andrew, what do you think of?

Really… nothing? Yea me either. He’s not that popular of a guy in the Bible; he’s only mentioned a handful of times (14 times to be exact). Six of those are when Jesus is calling him as a disciple (Mt 4:18, Mk 1:16, Jn 1:40-44), four of those times is when the 12 disciples are being listed (Mt 10:2, Mk 3:18, Lk 6:14, & Ac 1:13), twice they mention his house/hometown (Mk 1:29 & Jn 1:44), once he’s listed in a group (Mk 13:3) and the other times I’m not going to tell you cause that’s what you’re going to check out today.

So first stand up and (if possible, out loud) read John 1:35-40. This is John’s account of Jesus calling the disciples. Who was the first one of the disciples to follow Jesus?

Ok stand back up and read John 1:40-43 (Don’t want you falling asleep on me). What was the first thing Andrew did once he learned Jesus was the Messiah?

So Andrew finds the Messiah and the first thing he does is tell another person.

Next mention of Andrew we’re going to look at is John 6:3-13, and of course you’re going to stand and read it. What does Andrew do in this story?

This is a familiar story to you, but how many of you remembered that Andrew was the guy who found the kid with the loaves and fish? How does this relate to the other story? While Philip is starting to fret about what they are going to do, Andrew is evidently off talking to people and somehow finds this kid and brings him to Jesus.

Ok, third story. Stand up and read John 12:20-23. Now there’s more to this story then we are actually looking at, but I just want to focus on Andrew of course. So Philip gets a visit from some Greeks and they want to see Jesus, so who does Philip take them to?

I don’t know why Philip didn’t just take these guys right to Jesus, but instead he took them to Andrew and together they all went to go see Jesus.

How do these three stories connect? Each time Andrew is focused on bringing people to Christ. Sure Peter is the one who preaches the message at Pentecost, heals the lame, and writes books of the Bible, but what if Andrew hadn’t told him about the Messiah.

From Andrew, we learn that part of becoming who you are is being responsible for the talents God has given you. Andrew may not have been the guy who was front and center of many Bible stories but he faithfully connected with people and brought them to Christ. The same is true for you. Right now you’re a pretty ordinary person—not a king, not a prophet, not a pastor—but that doesn’t excuse you from using your talents. You need to be faithful with what God has given you so He can work through you. For Andrew it was bringing people to Christ. What are the talents God has given you and how can He use them to help you become who you are?

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This is the second of the two devotionals I wrote for our Maine Missions Trip. Our focus for the week was "Become Who You Are."