Day 231

Esther 4:1–7:10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-26; Psalm 36:1-12; Proverbs 21:21-22

THE BOOK OF Esther is incredibly dramatic, and we experienced much tension in today’s reading. Haman devised a plan to destroy the Jewish people throughout the Persian kingdom and got the king to go along with it, neither of them knowing that the queen was a Jewess. A law was passed instructing enemies of the Jews to destroy and pillage them. This was to occur on one specific day, and as the law reached the provinces, horror and desperation followed.

In sackcloth, ashes, and emotional agony, Mordecai sent word to Queen Esther, pleading for her intervention on behalf of her people —but there was a problem. If the queen came into the king’s presence without invitation, she could be executed. Mordecai sent a chilling but empowering message in response:

Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?

In our reading from 1 Corinthians, Paul answered a question about spiritual gifts:

There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us.

Paul then outlined the ways in which God bestows different gifts (wisdom, special knowledge, great faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in unknown languages, and interpretation) on different people. These gifts are to be used to serve the greater whole: “The human body has many parts, but the many parts make up one whole body. So it is with the body of Christ” (1 Corinthians 12:12).

Paul explained that all believers collectively make up the body of Christ. Each part of this body is irreplaceable. No part can say to another part that it is not needed because this is false. Each part is needed and necessary, and when one part hurts, the rest hurt as well.

If we could truly absorb the reality of Paul’s teaching, we would find that it gives us the incredible freedom of being ourselves. We don’t have to compare gifts or status in God’s Kingdom. We are exactly who God created us to be. We’re supposed to be ourselves rather than wishing we could live someone else’s life.

Live into this today. Every time you catch yourself comparing, stop and remember that you are already irreplaceable. Every time you feel a twitch of envy at another’s gifting, stop and remember that you are uniquely gifted and your life is deeply needed. God is the source of all our gifting, and every bit of it matters.

WORSHIP:

Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens; your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds. Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths.