{"id":5026,"date":"2023-09-20T17:08:44","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T22:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5026"},"modified":"2023-09-20T17:08:44","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T22:08:44","slug":"devotional-on-esther-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-esther-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Esther"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-lG1sTmdq-_c\/XwjNi7vZ4kI\/AAAAAAABFeQ\/mAKkFgyCQ6UcL9h7lRfaIWSxUnM5L19TwCPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190605_194804.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Chesapeake Bay Thousand Trails, Gloucester, VA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nA pretty girl is like a melody<br \/>\nEsther 2: The girl had a good figure and a beautiful face.<br \/>\nHaving met king Xerxes and Mordecai, we now meet the star of the story, Esther. Right off we\u2019re told of her natural beauty, something absolutely necessary for her to play a role in these events. Throughout the Bible we see that good looks aren&#8217;t necessary for true beauty. Even when we aren&#8217;t told that specifically, the failure of Scripture to describe just how people look except for those times when looks are a part of the story convinces us that appearance isn\u2019t a big deal to God. However, it\u2019s an advantage from a human point of view. (By the way, I speak an observer here and not from personal experience!) In Esther&#8217;s case, her looks are a necessary asset, and her appearance is used by God to bring deliverance to his people. Different people have different gifts: looks, intelligence, talents, or resources. If we consecrate those things to the Lord, he\u2019ll use them to advance his Kingdom. God doesn&#8217;t desire that a good looking person exploit that attribute for their own benefit any more than he wants a wealthy person to use their wealth only to please himself. In Esther, we see a beautiful woman using her beauty, not for selfish purposes, but for the Lord&#8217;s.<br \/>\nTake Away: If we\u2019ll surrender our gifts and attributes to the Lord he\u2019ll use them for both our benefit and the good of his Kingdom.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A pretty girl is like a melody Esther 2: The girl had a good figure and a beautiful face. Having met king Xerxes and Mordecai, we now meet the star of the story, Esther. Right off we\u2019re told of her natural beauty, something absolutely necessary for her to play a role in these events. Throughout [&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":[85,123],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026"}],"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=5026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14684,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5026\/revisions\/14684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}