{"id":5028,"date":"2023-09-21T17:14:13","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T22:14:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=5028"},"modified":"2023-09-21T17:14:13","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T22:14:13","slug":"devotional-on-esther-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-esther-5\/","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\/-r1v5wGmezzY\/Xwow4LCaXmI\/AAAAAAABFeg\/EEJGf9FVV30ZY6GfCmi7H3r7mRxbl-LRACPcBGAsYHg\/s1600\/IMG_20190606_195801.jpg\" width=\"1600\" height=\"900\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2019 &#8211; Chesapeake Bay Thousand Trails, Gloucester, VA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nGood versus evil<br \/>\nEsther 3: When Haman saw for himself that Mordecai didn&#8217;t bow down and kneel before him, he was outraged.<br \/>\nThe final person we meet in the story of Esther is Haman. Every good story needs a villain and Haman fits the role quite well. He has it all: pride, revenge, selfishness, godless ambition. Haman rises to a position of great power in government and he expects all the perks that come with power. He especially likes it when the &#8220;little people&#8221; bow and scrape before him. And that is what sets this story in motion. Each time Haman arrives at the palace to see the King he enters the gate with a flourish. Everyone plays along except for one senior adult Jew. Mordecai doesn&#8217;t think Haman is worth honoring and his refusal to pay homage infuriates him. He could respond by killing Mordecai but Haman has grander ambitions than that. He knows Mordecai is a Jew, so he schemes a way to do away with the whole Jewish population. Haman and Mordecai are polar opposites. Haman\u2019s a very bad man and Mordecai\u2019s a very good man who loves and serves God with all his heart. It\u2019s a classic conflict: good versus evil.<br \/>\nTake Away: Evil is real and it\u2019s especially evident in the presence of good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Good versus evil Esther 3: When Haman saw for himself that Mordecai didn&#8217;t bow down and kneel before him, he was outraged. The final person we meet in the story of Esther is Haman. Every good story needs a villain and Haman fits the role quite well. He has it all: pride, revenge, selfishness, godless [&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":[123,323,730,858],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028"}],"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=5028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14686,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5028\/revisions\/14686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}