Speaker 1: Welcome to a new month.
Speaker 1: The theme for this new month of December 2023 is Empowered's Destiny Predetermined Purposes.
Speaker 1: I'd like to remind us that Jesus Christ is our destiny maker.
Speaker 1: The scripture reading for today is the book of Esther, 11, verse 16.
Speaker 1: This particular scripture comes in the context of a destiny battle for the nation of Israel.
Speaker 1: Esther received word from Mordecai that the nation's destiny was in danger.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read the words that Esther sent to Mordecai in a moment when the destiny of the nation was in crisis.
Speaker 1: Verse 11 says that.
Speaker 1: Verse 10 says then Esther told Hathach to go back and relay this message to Mordecai.
Speaker 1: All the kings, officials and even the people in the provinces know that anyone who appears before the king in his inner court without being invited is doomed to die, unless the king holds out his gold sceptre.
Speaker 1: And the king has not called for me to come to him for 30 days.
Speaker 1: So Hathach gave Esther's message to Mordecai.
Speaker 1: Mordecai sent this reply to Esther don't think for a moment that because you are in the palace, you will escape when all other Jews are killed.
Speaker 1: If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die.
Speaker 1: Who knows if, perhaps, you are made queen for just such a moment as this?
Speaker 1: Indeed, this is an amazing scripture, because I would like us to focus on the verse that says that if you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die.
Speaker 1: In this month of empowered destiny, it is important that we take our positions.
Speaker 1: It is important that we take our place and fight for our destinies, because if we don't take our position and fight for our destiny in this last month especially because there are many things that God has been wanting to do in our lives for the whole of this year, and this last month is the month that God is going to empower your destiny this last month is the month that you're going to achieve everything that God had pretermined concerning your life, and my encouragement to us is that, in this last month that you are going to take our position, take our position in prayer that we will fight, we will pray, we will stand in the place of prayer, prayer stand in the gap for the family, for the church and for the nation, because if we keep quiet at such a time as this.
Speaker 1: Deliverance will come.
Speaker 1: But the issue is that if we don't stand our grounds, deliverance will come.
Speaker 1: But if it comes from other sources deliverance will come.
Speaker 1: But if it comes from other people, then we ourselves like the Queen Esther is being told here we ourselves might miss it.
Speaker 1: We might miss our moments and our visitations.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're here and you're saying that I haven't seen my visitation the whole of this year I've been waiting.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're here and you feel that you don't have your power, you don't know your purpose for life and that you have nothing positive to contribute.
Speaker 1: I encourage you to read Psalms 139, verse 13 and 18, and find out how God empowered your destiny long before you're born, for the Bible says that before you are born, before you are formed in your mother's womb, before you are conceived, god wrote out your purposes, he wrote out the days of your life.
Speaker 1: He wrote out concerning your life in his book of destiny.
Speaker 1: And as you stay in the place of prayer, like the apostle Paul prayed, as you stay in the place of prayer and other people in the Bible, even the Lord Jesus Christ himself prayed.
Speaker 1: As you stay in the place of prayer and as you dig deep in the words and as you begin to move out to, to fulfill your destiny, you are going to see great and mighty things.
Speaker 1: My prayer for all of us is that those things we wrote from the beginning of the year, the whole of this year, that we've been waiting upon the Lord, will be fulfilled in this last month of the year, and that we shall close this year victoriously, successfully, and that we will come back and return our thanks and our thanksgiving offering because of what the Lord has done.
Speaker 1: Amen and amen, thank you.