Est 4:14b who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?
This is a story relayed by Corrie Ten Boom, “It was Christmas, 1944. My sister, Betsie, had died. I was in a hospital barracks in Ravensbruck, a Nazi prison camp. Dark it was in my heart, and darkness was around me. There were Christmas trees in the street between the barracks. Dead bodies of prisoners had been thrown under the Christmas trees. I tried to talk to the people around me about Christmas, but they mocked and sneered. At last, I kept quiet.
In the middle of the night, I suddenly heard a child crying and calling, “Mommy! Come to Oelie. Oelie feels so alone.” I went to her and saw a child not so young, but feebleminded. “Oelie, Mommy cannot come, but do you know who is willing to come to you? Jesus will come.” Oelie was lying on a bed next to the window, not far from lack of food, she had a sweet face and beautiful eyes. A bandage of toilet paper covered an incision from surgery on her back. That night I told this poor child about Jesus. How He came into the world as a little baby how He came to save us from our sins. “The Lord Jesus loves Oelie and has borne her punishment on the cross…. Jesus is … [in heaven] right now. He is getting a little house ready for Oelie.” Later I asked her what she remembered of what I had told her. “What is the little house like?” I asked. “It is very beautiful. There are no wicked people as in Ravensbruck only good people and angels. And Oelie will see Jesus there.” The child added, “I will ask Jesus to make me brave when I have a pain. I will think of the pain that Jesus suffered to show Oelie the way to heaven.” Oelie folded her hands; together we gave thanks. Then I knew why I had to spend this Christmas in Ravensbruck.”
Often, we find ourselves in difficult situations or places, and we can’t for the life of us understand for what possible reason we’re here — but be encouraged! We may not understand but God does! And who knows whether you have come into the kingdom for such a time as this?
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]I could tell you about countless difficult and drawn out circumstances over which we have tried to stand firmly in faith until they finally came to pass. Sometimes we made it and sometimes we were weak and began to doubt. But God mercifully came through for us on most of these things, despite our lack of strength to stay faith-ful.
New Testament genealogies of Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus the Christ) all identify Him as the son of king David. It was universally understood from the Tenach (OT) that the messiah would be descended from David and that he would restore the Davidic monarchy to its ultimate and most universal expression, even that this king would reign and sit on the throne forever.
This weekend, the Jewish people will celebrate the festival of Purim. This holiday commemorates Israel’s amazing reversal in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) when Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai gained victory for the Jews and protected them from annihilation at the hands of the evil Haman.
Over two decades ago, when I moved to Israel, I had the opportunity to spend considerable time with a pastor and his wife. This pastor imparted significant wisdom to me during that period, counseling me to “be like the children of Issachar,” he directed me to this specific passage in 1 Chronicles 12.
Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing the will of God and how to walk out His will daily in our lives. The Lord’s general will involves the development of our character and the ways in which we relate to Him and to our fellow man. Much of this is the same for every believer. But each of us is unique, and each has a potential life vision unlike any other. God has an individual will for every soul that belongs to Him, an individually shaped destiny which varies according to our gifting and calling and purpose in His Body.
As God worked on creation for six days and rested on the seventh day, so our seven day week is established on that pattern. If, as the scripture declares, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day, then the seven-day cycle also finds expression in a great historical “week”. As we approach the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah, this “millennium” as it is called, (described in some detail in Revelation chapter 20), is clearly understood as a time of global rest, peace, and righteousness throughout the Earth.
The word for “restitution” in this passage is the Greek word – “apokatastasis”. This is the one and only place it is found in the New Testament. The word literally means to “restore again” or “to repair”. The plan of God in sending His Son Yeshua (Jesus) was to restore that which had been broken and ruined. The Lord’s saving work is a global repair job. Each one of us has come to Him already ruined by sin. But God’s will and His promise is to restore and renew us through His Son.