Celebrate God’s Victories in your Life!

Esther 9

Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Wednesday, January 4.

How do you celebrate the major victories of your life? Is there anything that you commemorate every year because it is important for you to remember it?

The Jewish people won a major victory against their enemies (Esther 9:1-19). Mordecai commemorated their victory with a new holiday called Purim, also called the Feast of Lots, because the wicked Haman had cast lots (pur in Hebrew) for the day of their destruction (Esther 3:7; 9:26). In fact, in a Great Reversal, this holiday occurs on the same day that Haman intended for the genocide of the Jews. We read about the institution of Purim in Esther 9:20-22:

Then Mordecai recorded these events, and he sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, obliging them to celebrate the fourteenth day of the month Adar, and the fifteenth day of the same month, annually, because on those days the Jews rid themselves of their enemies, and it was a month which was turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and rejoicing and sending portions of food to one another and gifts to the poor.

This Jewish holiday is still celebrated, and for some modern-day Jews, it is considered the most fun-filled, action-packed day of the Jewish calendar. According to a Jewish webpage, the Jewish people commemorate their deliverance from certain death through the reading of the book of Esther, the giving of gifts to the poor, and with the celebration of the Purim feast.[1]

Seize the moment and celebrate God’s victories in your life! Celebrate Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost with your church family, but also commemorate your salvation by remembering your baptism and other milestones of your Christian life.

If you would like to receive a personal phone call today, all you have to do is dial the phone number below right now and one of us will call you soon.

YOUTUBE:

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Videos are posted about a week after the devotion appears in the blog.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] What is Purim? https://www.chabad.org/holidays/purim/article_cdo/aid/645309/jewish/What-Is-Purim.htm (Accessed December 27, 2022).