{"id":14797,"date":"2013-09-24T01:00:12","date_gmt":"2013-09-24T06:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/?p=14797"},"modified":"2013-09-23T20:05:02","modified_gmt":"2013-09-24T01:05:02","slug":"esther-chapter-44-7","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/2013\/09\/24\/esther-chapter-44-7\/","title":{"rendered":"Esther – Chapter 4:4-7"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Wk4_Esther_Ellison\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Esther 4:4-7<\/strong><\/p>\n

So Esther\u2019s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept\u00a0them.\u00a0Then Esther called Hathach,\u00a0one\u00a0of the king\u2019s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command concerning Mordecai, to learn what and why this\u00a0was.\u00a0So Hathach went out to Mordecai in the city square that\u00a0was\u00a0in front of the king\u2019s gate.\u00a0And Mordecai told him all that had happened to him, and the sum of money that Haman had promised to pay into the king\u2019s treasuries to destroy the Jews.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Sometimes there is a pull on our heart or, as my pastor says, an \u201cunrest in our spirit.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0I believe that Esther experienced this.\u00a0 She was told something disturbing and she was “deeply distressed.” Has this ever happened to you? \u00a0We find out a piece of information…see or hear something…and then we know<\/em> something isn\u2019t right. \u00a0We may or may not know exactly what is going on, or what all of the details are, but we know<\/em> that something is wrong.\u00a0 I think this is what Esther experienced this day.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t know why Mordecai was acting the way he was acting but she knew<\/em> that it was serious and wanted to know more.<\/p>\n

So what does she do about this unrest?\u00a0 She asks. \u00a0She seeks clarification. \u00a0She sends a message to him asking what the situation is.\u00a0 How does this apply to you and me?\u00a0 Mordecai symbolizes the Holy Spirit and, like Esther asked questions of Mordecai, we can ask a question of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 We need not send someone to ask for us—we can go directly to our Helper ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0John 14:16<\/i><\/strong><\/h4>\n

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever\u2014<\/span><\/i><\/i><\/h4>\n

\u00a0Sometimes we don\u2019t have to ask; sometimes the Holy Spirit speaks directly to us. <\/span>\u201cThe Holy Spirit is that voice inside of us that convicts us of sin, while encouraging us to do better.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Last week my<\/span> pastor said something that stuck with me, he said that <\/span>\u201cthe same Holy Spirit that was in the Bible is in us.\u201d <\/b>\u00a0The same Holy Spirit at work in the heart of Esther is the same Holy Spirit at work in our hearts.\u00a0 The same Holy Spirit that began to pull on the heart of Esther that day isthe same Holy Spirit who pulls on<\/span> our hearts to make a change in our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

This week I am determined to pray on the question that Darlene asks, “Is there anything in your life that you\u2019ve recently been convicted of or encouraged to improve upon?” <\/b>Like Esther I want to seek out what change needs to be made; I want to see how I need to improve the situation I\u2019m in.\u00a0 Like Esther I am going to ask of my Helper what those changes need to be. I\u2019m going to ask what needs to be done.<\/p>\n

_______<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s Pray<\/span>:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dear Heavenly Father, thank You for the Helper that You have sent to us. \u00a0Thank You for the pull on our spirit when things need to change. \u00a0So often we feel that something is wrong, or that something can be better. \u00a0Lord, give us the courage to seek the answers from the Holy Spirit, to seek the change that needs to be made.\u00a0 In Jesus’ name we pray.<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Esther 4:4-7 So Esther\u2019s maids and eunuchs came and told her, and the queen was deeply distressed. Then she sent garments to clothe Mordecai and take his sackcloth away from him, but he would not accept\u00a0them.\u00a0Then Esther called Hathach,\u00a0one\u00a0of the king\u2019s eunuchs whom he had appointed to attend her, and she gave him a command […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":14803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[3511,1266,3475,3818,3512,425,3819,506,2507,1075,1141],"class_list":["post-14797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-womens","tag-book-of-esther","tag-christian-womens-fellowship","tag-darlene-schacht","tag-esther-44-7","tag-esther-the-beauty-of-courageous-submission","tag-girlfriends-coffee-hour","tag-helper","tag-holy-spirit","tag-john-14-16","tag-tonya-ellison","tag-womens-online-bible-study","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Wk4_Esther_Ellison.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p39pHp-3QF","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14797"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14827,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14797\/revisions\/14827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/girlfriendscoffeehour.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}