Taking Risks to Help Others

I hope everyone is really getting into the book of Esther this week. It's full of suspense, and it's awesome to see God's perfect plan unfold in this story. Esther's story is also a wonderful example of a woman taking a big risk to help others!

After the date and time had been set for all the Jews in King Xerxes' kingdom to be destroyed, Queen Esther is petitioned by her cousin and adopted father to approach the king. Mordecai tells her to beg the king for his mercy and plead for her people. This was dangerous for two reasons:
1) The punnishment for approaching the king without a summons could be death!
2) King Xerxes had no idea his queen was a Jew. Esther would have to reveal that she, too, was set to be destroyed!

We see her couragous decision in verse 16:
“... though it is against the law, I will go in to see the king. If I must die, I must die.”

Esther made a decision to try to help her people, even though she risked her own life to do it!

God wants us to help people (see Luke 3:11). Now God may never ask us to risk as much as Esther, but often times helping people DOES require us to risk something. It might be time, safety, money or comfort. Regardless of what we risk, we should choose to obey God. In those times we should choose to have an attitude like Esther's!