Last weekend I went to the Women Without Walls Spring Retreat at Antioch Village and Conference Center. It was such a blessed time in the Lord and in so many ways God met me there. The theme for this spring was For Such A Time As This... Speaking that weekend were Patti Carver, Pastor Patricia Cherry, Kathy Blythe, Honorable Cheryl Allen and Honorable Patricia McCullough.
Friday night opened up with Patti Carver bringing forth the message.There was so much that night that really hit me so I'll try to get into that as much as possible.
"And who knows whether you have not come to the Kingdom for such a time as this?" Esther 4:14 NIV
Just a background on Esther, she was least likely candidate to be queen. Think about it. She was a Jew and was orphaned at an early age and her cousin Mordecai raised her. Based on her circumstances, Esther was not a likely candidate for Queen.
But Esther found favor with those who were around her. She had a teachable spirit and was gracious and she knew who she was in God. She was not afraid to be what God called her to be.
When Esther heard of the plan to destroy the Jews, she acted on it. She was willing to commit her life to the cause.
Obedience is key. If we don't do it , God will surely rise another up...but I believe that there are circumstances that we find ourselves in and there are moments that come that we were called to act upon. For such a time as this...God has brought us here. He has orchestrated our circumstances and people...He has orchestrated these "For such a time as this..." moments in our lives. But we have to submit to Him and we need to be confident in knowing who we are and be who God made us to be.
We need to stop letting others define who we are, how we act, and what we say.
We need to know who we are and be confident with who God made us to be so that when we come to those "For such a time as this..." moments, we can act accordingly.
In Ephesians 2:10 it tells us that we are created to do His purpose for us. We were created to do good works with God had prepared in advance for us to do.
God is positioning His people "for such a time as this..."
Another thing that was talked about at WWW was how we need to have haves. Stay with me here - this really got me! In Acts there is a very familiar passage of scripture where Peter and John are going to the temple and they pass this beggar who is asking for silver or gold.
Peter says to Him, "Silver and gold I have not. For such as I have I give to you.." The lame beggar walked again.
What did Peter have there? He had haves...for such that he had he gave....
You get a "have" by being in the presence of God and by being filled with His Spirit.
What do you have?
We need to spend time in His presence for when those "for such a time as this" moments come that we have haves to pull out and use. We need to be filled with the spirit and constantly in the presence of God.
Lastly for Friday night, we went over the parable of the 10 virgins in Matthew 25. You see in this passage that these women had a lot in common.
-They were all virgins.
- They were all going to the wedding.
- They all had lamps.
- They all had fire in their lamps (at one point.)
- They were all tired.
-They were all waiting.
BUT
They did NOT all have extra oil.
Why is it that they didn't have extra oil? It doesn't say. But maybe they were too busy? Maybe they didn't think they would need it? Maybe they thought it was too expensive? But whatever their reasons, they did not have the oil.
Can you picture this? The ten virgins are waiting for the bridegroom to come and getting very tired and suddenly they hear that the bridegroom is coming! And then they go and turn up their lamps and those of them who didn't have extra oil realized that they wouldn't have enough and are asking their friends, "Hey, can I borrow some of your oil?"
And they respond, "If I share my oil, I won't have enough. Go get your own oil!"
We need to get our own oil and not be feeding our flame off of other people's experiences. We need to have haves and to get into God's presence so that when those "For such a time as this..." moments come, we have a have to pull out and we will be ready.
I'll sum up the weekend later, but this is all for now! Friday session was amazing!
Dancing in the shadow of His cross,
Brittany
2 comments:
I saw you were following my blog so I stopped over to check yours out and I am so glad I did! I love this post!
I have always loved the story of Esther and the scripture ...for such a time as this. She is kind of my hero. Anyway, I really love the exhortation to "get our own oil" and not try to borrow from someone else. We are responsible for our own spiritual life! Thanks for sharing. What a great retreat that must be!
Thank you so much for the encouraging words! Yes, it was an awesome retreat! If you are interested you can find more about women without walls at womensithoutwalls.org or find them on facebook! :)
There is more from Esther coming soon. I am currently at the Penndel youth convention "compelled by love" and for district fine arts, so when I get home I'll write the next part.
God bless!
Brittany
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