Fit for a King

Psalm 45:10-11
Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention: Forget your people and your father's house. Let the king be enthralled by your beauty; honor him, for he is your lord.

Esther was one of the famous women in the Bible. She is the one that had the reality of most little girls dreams. An ordinary girl, an orphan girl, who becomes a queen of one of the most powerful nations. But was it as glamerous as we really think? Are we anything like Esther? Let us enter the world of Esther.

Who was Esther?

Esther 2:7

Mordecai had a cousin named Hadassah, whom he had brought up because she had neither father nor mother. This young woman, who was also known as Esther, had a lovely figure and was beautiful. Mordecai had taken her as his own daughter when her father and nother died.

How are we like Esther?

Well, first, we are orphans like Esther. You may wonder, "How am I an orphan - I have a mother and a father. Yes you may, but we are adopted into the Kingdom of God."

Galatians 4:4-7

But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’  So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.

Isn't it awesome to know that we belong to God! I love that we can call Him Abba Father. It is comforting to know that if you did not have a father growing up, that you have a Heavenly father. My son once said he had 3 dads. We were trying to figure out who his three dads were, and he said he had his real dad (biological dad), he had his step dad, and God is his dad. Or maybe you had a real good relationship with your dad, like me. Then it is just even more affirming to know we have another dad that is even more wonderful!

We are also like Esther, in that we have a lovely figure. You may laugh, and look at yourself not thinking you have a lovely figure. Or maybe you think that it may be prideful of us to call our figures lovely. Well, this is the reason I think we all have a lovely figure - God created us, and God does not make mistakes.

 

Genesis 1:26-27

Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground." So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:31

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning —the sixth day.

 

 

So, the next time you look in the mirror, and start pointing out all of your flaws, remember, you are a part of God's creation, and after God created you, He said that it was good.

 

 

Now that we can identify with Esther. Let us read on to find out what happens to Esther, and how can it apply to our own lives.

Esther 2:8-11

When the king’s order and edict had been proclaimed, many young women were brought to the citadel of Susa and put under the care of Hegai. Esther also was taken to the king’s palace and entrusted to Hegai, who had charge of the harem. She pleased him and won his favor. Immediately he provided her with her beauty treatments and special food. He assigned to her seven female attendants selected from the king’s palace and moved her and her attendants into the best place in the harem. Esther had not revealed her nationality and family background, because Mordecai had forbidden her to do so. Every day he walked back and forth near the courtyard of the harem to find out how Esther was and what was happening to her.

Esther had to prepare herself before she even could see the king. The girls went through a year long process of treatments before they could see the King.

Esther 2:12-14

Before a young woman’s turn came to go in to King Xerxes, she had to complete twelve months of beauty treatments prescribed for the women, six months with oil of myrrh and six with perfumes and cosmetics. And this is how she would go to the king: Anything she wanted was given her to take with her from the harem to the king’s palace. In the evening she would go there and in the morning return to another part of the harem to the care of Shaashgaz, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the concubines. She would not return to the king unless he was pleased with her and summoned her by name.

Are we prepared to see our King?

Matthew 25:1-13

At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep. “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ “Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’ “‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’ “But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut. “Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’ “But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’  “Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

How do we become like the prepared virgins - to have enough oil in our lamps, even extra oil to be watchful for the coming of our King?


Ephesians 5:21-33

Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.  Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word,  and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.  After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.  “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.  However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.

Christ is our Bridegroom - He wants nothing more than for us to be the radiant Bride - pure, spotless, and blameless. What more could a bridegroom want from a bride. Could you imagine a bride on her wedding day, not wanting get prepared. That shoes up in dirty, wrinkled clothes, hair matted from being unkept for so long, teeth stained, and dirt all over her skin? No, I think even the poorest of brides will do everthing she can to look her best for her wedding day. We need to be like that for Christ. How do we become pure, blamess, and spotless? Through true repentence. We need to seek inside of ourselves to see where we have displeased the Lord. It is so important to seek God, to cleanse us of all unrighteousness.

So, what happens if we remain pure and blameless?

Psalm 37:18-19

The blameless spend their days under the Lord’s care,
and their inheritance will endure forever. In times of disaster they will not wither; in days of famine they will enjoy plenty.”

What was the outcome of Esther?

Esther 2:15-18

When the turn came for Esther (the young woman Mordecai had adopted, the daughter of his uncle Abihail ) to go to the king, she asked for nothing other than what Hegai, the king’s eunuch who was in charge of the harem, suggested. And Esther won the favor of everyone who saw her. She was taken to King Xerxes in the royal residence in the tenth month, the month of Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign. Now the king was attracted to Esther more than to any of the other women, and she won his favor and approval more than any of the other virgins. So he set a royal crown on her head and made her queen instead of Vashti. And the king gave a great banquet, Esther’s banquet, for all his nobles and officials. He proclaimed a holiday throughout the provinces and distributed gifts with royal liberality.

What will be our outcome? Will we find favor with the Lord?

Basically, we have 2 options, to not prepare ourselves, and be greeted with this:

Matthew 7:21-23
"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles? 'Then I will tell them plainly, 'I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!'

Or, will we be greeted with this?

Matthew 25:34
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.


I really want the Lord to welcome me to the gates of Heaven. I want to be the prepared Bride. And why do I want this? Because check out the Beatuiful Bride of Christ:

Revelation 21:9-26
One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.

The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cuits thick. The wall was made of jasper, and the city of upre gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.

I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.

Praise the Lord!!! This is what I want. To become the Bride of Christ. Until that day comes, I pray that you are encouraged to continue the walk of Faith with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!