This Week With Jesus

"For if you remain completely silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish. Yet who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” - Esther 4:14 What a profound ultimatum was given to Esther!  But in  Esther we find a powerful message of courage and divine providence. Esther found herself in a powerful position as a queen. She used her position to save her people from a terrible fate at the urging of her cousin Mordecai, who is quoted above as well. In fact, till this day the Israelites celebrate Purim , to commemorate the defeat of Haman's plot to massacre the Jews as recorded in the book of Esther.  Like Esther, have you ever felt you were in a certain situation for a reason? That perhaps, like Esther, God has orchestrated events in your life to fulfil a special purpose? It can be easy to feel insignificant and powerless, but God often places us exactly where we

                                                                                                                                Image: Scout Life Magazine Prayer is a pillar or actually the cornerstone of Christian life.  A typical prayer may include giving thanks, intercession, blessings, praise etc.  And we may ask for help with the problems and challenges we face. Tom Clark from Life, Home and Truth has this to say -  ... "do we always pray for the right things?  Let me illustrate this with a paraphrase of a story by Peggy Porter on  usscouts.org  that I read many years ago. Eight-year-old Gilbert had only been in Cub Scouts a short while when the scoutmaster handed everyone a block of wood, four tires and a sheet of instructions, and told them to go home and “give it all to Dad.” Unfortunately, the dad part was not an option for Gilbert, so the block of wood sat untouched for days as a befuddled Gilbert struggled to figure out what to do. Finally, without a better option, Gilb

                                             Man lives his or her life in moments, not in years, though we do celebrate birthdays. In actuality, life is lived in moments. We often  miss fully living in the present moment because we are so busy rehashing the past or rehearsing the future.  Our days are numbered as is our breadth. We could be happily alive one moment, and moved on the next, leaving our near and dear ones, our riches and all our material glory behind. The material outcome of each one of us is the same: ashes and dust and onto eternal life minus all we have known. Meanwhile I can either strike off the day or moments I have lived or   add each day of my life to my treasure of days lived ( Robert Brault). Therefore, each moment of life is to be celebrated; with joyous gratitude and celebrating those moments with sharing a piece of ourselves. William Arthur Ward pointed this out and famously said "God gave you a gift of 86,400 seconds today. Have you used one to say '

These days we honor some thinker or scientist or politician saying "she (or he)" is a visionary. The meaning of that erm is thinking about or planning the future with imagination or wisdom and believes in it. They are full of knowledge which they apply and practice. According to world norms, everyone is not a visionary. Only a few exceptional ones. According to Christian terms, who are the visionaries? Well, everyone, has the opportunity. Few perhaps take it. Visionaries are the people who look at the world as it is and see what it could be instead. A Christian visionary sees it as it is today, and what he will become beyond, and plans for it. S/He sees and believes that there is a life beyond death which they want to save and are ready to invest in it. S/He researches, believes and plans. S/He shares. Christian visionaries are not afraid to pivot, and lead a life based on Christ's way. They believe there is a war out there, an unseen but not unfelt war. They pray for, a