Year 5, Day 69: Esther 9-10

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Appetite

• Appetite: We all have needs that need to be filled.  When we allow ourselves to be filled with the people and things that God brings into our life, we will be satisfied because our In will be in proper focus.  But when we try to fill ourselves with our own desires we end up frustrated by an insatiable hunger.

I think I’m going to take a fairly unusual angle on the topic of appetite.  Usually when we talk about appetite we talk about how much it gets out of control and leads us down the wrong path.  But today I’m going to talk about a group of people who were able to keep their appetite in check.  Today we’ll look at a people who don’t succumb to appetite.

The Jews get permission to defend themselves from the king.  Furthermore, they seem to get all kinds of governmental support from those who don’t want to get on Mordecai’s bad side.  They have every right to defend themselves and then take the spoils.  They have every right to assuage their appetite for revenge by claiming the goods of those who rose up against them.

But they don’t.  The Hebrew people don’t even look at the goods.  They don’t claim the spoils of war.  They don’t need to claim the spoils because it is God who sustains them.  They don’t need to sustain themselves with the things of the word.  They are sustained by God.  That’s what the whole story of Esther is all about.  The Hebrew people can keep their appetite in check because they are focused upon God.

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