Obidience

The other day I felt a lil overwhelmed and felt the Lord tugging at my heart. I quickly realized that I hadn't made time for Him in a while. I take time to pray and all but I needed to be feed...spiritually fed through His word. So I picked up the Bible and felt the need to start reading the book of Esther. I've heard many sermons on this book, seen the movie and have even made references to this story but I realized that I don't really know exactly how the story goes..ya know..the details so this is a great place to start. Let me tell ya...God has an amazing way of talking to us. Whoever said the Bible isn't alive is missing out on a tremendous experience. Chapter 1 spoke to me about respect....specifically to respect my husband. This is something Queen Vashti totally failed at...she definitely got a F- in this department. So that spoke to my heart and I meditated for a while. Perfect timing because this Father's Day is my hubby's first and Karina and I have decided that we are going to honor daddy and treat him like a King as a sign of respect! Today I read Ch. 2 and once again the Lord spoke to me. This time it was about obedience. Esther 2:20 read: "

Esther continued to keep her nationality and family background a secret. She was still following Mordecai's orders just as she did when she was living in his home"

Every time the Lord grabs my attention on something I read in the Bible I see a flashing light to reflect on that and this verse did just that. You see...Mordecai was Esther's cousin. He took her in when her parents died. He was alot older than her so he saw her and took her in like a daughter. To me Mordecai represents the Lord. Someone who is protective, attentive, a provider, a teacher, a role model, authority. You can tell that Esther had alot of respect for her "father" Modercai and honored him.

Application: "Mordecai" represents the Lord and being in the Lord's presence whether it's at church, around other believers or simply in communion with the Lord in prayer. We try to be at our best when we are around other Christians which is awesome BUT how do we behave when we're around nonbelievers? Esther was in a completely different environment, different home, around completely different people yet she remained true to her word and kept her integrity. She probably could have gotten away with it for a bit yet she chose to remained loyal.

Question: Are we obedient to the Lord regardless of where we are (or whom we're with) or are we trying to fit in? If the Lord has kept His word why do we feel that we don't have to keep ours all the time? Are we willing to comprise our relationship with the Lord in order to please others by doing things we shouldn't? As Christians we should be transparent, we should be real. The Lord should define us not the circumstance, a person or place. Like Esther, we should strive to be godly all the time. God puts us in situations so we can be used by Him and set an example. Every time we fail to do this we might have just lost a divine opportunity to bring someone to Christ...think about it. Nothing happens by chance. We make an impact on more people than we think whether it's good or bad. I once had two kids over and we decided to watch a family movie. When asked if they wanted to see it they told us they needed to call and ok it with their mom first because they were only allowed to watch certain movies. I totally loved this because it truly taught me a lesson. We should always remain obedient to our Father even when we think He's "not watching" even though He always is. Obedience is talked about all over Provers as a matter of fact, all over the Bible. We should definitely take some time and do a spiritual inventory because apparently this is an important matter to God!

***Obedience goes a long way especially when we obey God***