FOR THIS VERY TIME AND PLACE

Esther 4:1-7:10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-26; Psalm 36:1-12; Proverbs 21:21-22

“Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?”

“There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us. A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.”

“Whoever pursues righteousness and unfailing love will find life, righteousness, and honor.”

Humans have always complained a lot about injustice, inequity, immorality and any number of other things, but most of us do precious little to combat any of it. A familiar refrain in human history is the plaintive question, “But what can I do about it?” The Holy Spirit’s answer to Christians is always the same: “Plenty!” However, instead of taking the risk and acting on and in faith, we take the coward’s way out. Passivity. Que sera, sera. That has got to change!

Edmund Burke said, "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." How right he was! It is time for Christians, especially, to quit whining and start acting in the power God gives them. Our problem is not that we are not empowered; our problem is that we do not believe we are empowered, so we will not, cannot, act in and based on faith. Consequently, we fail to take advantage of the gifts the Spirit gives us to change our world and win souls for the Kingdom. We doubt the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives, so we have never tested the power of Christ. Most of us have no idea if it will hold up under stress or not. More’s the pity when we don’t claim our power as children of the Father, and it just lies inside us, dormant and wasted. Let it lie long enough, and we become spiritually atrophied. This is precisely what James was referring to when he stated, “Faith without works is dead.” Unused muscles soon waste away. A faith which is missing in action has a similarly limited longevity.

Here is my question. What good is an unused, untested faith? Why bother with religion at all if we are just going to put it on a shelf where we can look at it in a vain effort to derive some emotional comfort from its presence? Some might say emotional comfort itself is reason enough for faith. I beg to differ. Anyone who claims emotional comfort from an untried and untested faith is just kidding themselves into thinking they have a relationship with Christ. There can be no relationship without connection, interaction and mission. If we do not allow Christ to empower us, even to the point of discomfort, we really have no part in him, and we among all men and women are most to be pitied. We may as well worship an idol or golden calf for all the eternal good our cosmetic faith generates in the world.

When life throws us curve balls – as it certainly did Esther – our first question should not be “Why me?” or “What can I do about it?” It should be “What if God put me here precisely to deal with this situation?” Odds are, He probably did, after all. The next self-challenge ought to follow if only as a matter of logic. “What would He want to do about it, if the only tool He had was me?” Then, get about it. This is exactly what Esther ended up doing, with a little help from ol’ Uncle Mordecai. She evaluated her situation, her blessings and her need, and then she acted, even at the risk of her very life. And God prevailed. Scripture is clear about the outcome had she refused to act. At the very least, she and her family would not have lived to see the victory of Yahweh or the salvation of the Hebrews. What a waste of a perfectly good Queen that would have been.

Paul is very clear. Each one of us is gifted by the Spirit. We have different gifts for different uses and reasons. Each one of us is gifted by the Spirit for a specific purpose. We are gifted to help others. It follows, then, that it is quite impossible to be filled with the Spirit and yet be unwilling to step forward and take the risk of helping others. Too many claim the Spirit while too few do anything with Him. If we can be honest with ourselves about nothing else, let us at least be honest about that. And if we honestly do claim the Spirit, let us put our faith into action. Who knows but that we were given grace and hope specifically to share them with others at such a time as this.