Purposeful Purim Purposeful Prayer Go gather all the

Purposeful Purim Purposeful Prayer

Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish. ” -Esther 4: 16

And Mordecai recorded these things and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21 obliging them to keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same, year by year, -Esther 9: 20 -22

22 as the days on which the Jews got relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and gifts to the poor. -Esther 9: 20 -22

Outline of Esther 1 -2 King of Persia’s Greatness 3 a Haman Elevated 3 b Haman’s decree to kill the Jews 4 Esther and Mortdecai plan to reverse the decree 5 Esther’s first banquet 6 Mortdecai is honored as like a king (story pivots) 7 Esther’s second banquet 8 a Esther and Mortdecai plan to reverse the decree 8 b Mortdecai’s decree to save the Jews 8 c Mortdecai elevated 9 -10 Mortdecai’s greatness

Prayer is reaching out after the unseen; fasting is letting go of all that is seen and temporal. Fasting helps express, deepen, confirm the resolution that we are ready to sacrifice anything, even ourselves to attain what we seek for the kingdom of God. -Andrew Murray

Message of the World: Take care of yourself Message of Christianity: Deny yourself

But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. 2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, 4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— 2 Timothy 3: 1 -4

5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2: 5 -8

Purposeful Purim Purposeful Prayer

If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. Psalm 66: 18

“While we are looking at God we do not see ourselves—blessed riddance. ” A. W. Tozer

“Prayer doesn’t change who God is, but it changes who we are. ”

“Fasting prepares you for the battle against sin to say NO to the flesh”

Purposeful Purim Purposeful Prayer