{"id":5020,"date":"2023-09-17T16:29:42","date_gmt":"2023-09-17T21:29:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5020"},"modified":"2023-09-17T16:29:42","modified_gmt":"2023-09-17T21:29:42","slug":"devotional-on-esther","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-esther\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Esther"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/3.bp.blogspot.com\/-rjhyVIxX894\/XwTJGxNBgKI\/AAAAAAABFbg\/C-hcc9L4Wps2U8_KBds0PngSFCHMOCjaACPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190427_181129.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Wendy Oaks RV Park, Florence, MS<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGod has always had a people<br \/>\nEsther 1: This is the story of something that happened in the time of Xerxes.<br \/>\nThroughout history there\u2019s been more than one attempt to destroy the people of God. It seems that the enemies of God&#8217;s think that if they get rid of his people they\u2019ll get rid of him too. That\u2019s mistaken in two ways. God is God, and killing his followers won&#8217;t kill Him, in fact, it will only make him angry. Second, God always has a people. Even when evil has the upper hand, by God&#8217;s mercy, there will be at least a remnant that will survive and extend his story to the next generation. In the story of Esther, we see God intervene and spare all his people. To this day, the Jews celebrate this event which is called \u201cPurim.\u201d One of the main characters in the story is Xerxes who rules Persia 465 years before Christ is born. Included in his vast kingdom is the exiled people of God. In spite of the pitiful picture of Xerxes in Scripture, he is, at least early in his career, a pretty successful king winning major battles and taking even more territory. Late in his reign history pictures him pretty much as he is said to be in the book of Esther: self-centered, drunken, and foolish.<br \/>\nTake Away: It\u2019s such a privilege to be counted as one of God\u2019s people.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>God has always had a people Esther 1: This is the story of something that happened in the time of Xerxes. Throughout history there\u2019s been more than one attempt to destroy the people of God. It seems that the enemies of God&#8217;s think that if they get rid of his people they\u2019ll get rid of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1492,7],"tags":[123,429,552,1172],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5020"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14679,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5020\/revisions\/14679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}