Esther seemed to have the whole world against her. Not only had her mother and father died, she was also a refugee in a strange land. However, she had an older cousin who loved her and took her in as his own daughter. Her adoptive father, Mordecai, later was instrumental in Esther becoming the Queen of Babylon. Mordecai was a man of honor. He lived by the rule of “loving your neighbor as yourself” and modeled a passion for justice in caring for his family, his community and his host country. When he became aware of an assassination plot against the king, he alarmed the authorities and saved his life, even though this was the very king who kept him and his fellow Jewish people in exile by force.
Later on, when another political leader hatched a genocidal plan to extinguish all Jews, Mordecai called on Esther to use her position as queen to save her people from certain death. By asking Esther to approach the king for help, she had to put her own life in danger. The life that Mordecai modeled to Esther had affected her in such a way that she willingly risked her own life and her effort resulted in the saving of a nation.
Mordecai’s life and model is a powerful example of the positive effect parents can have on their children by modeling values of justice and righteousness.
But what happens when children observe discrimination in their own home, when parents speak of justice for strangers but treat each other unjustly, when a father speaks of love but beats his wife, when we talk of God loving all people but spew hatred for different ethnic groups or types of sinners, when we constantly criticize our government but don’t even vote. How can we expect children to believe and model justice if parents, caregivers and authority figures do not model it in the home? How can we hope to influence our communities if we do not model community concern and action at home? The answer? We can’t!
Could this be a reason why God in his Word places such a high priority on the integrity and wholeness of the family? For better or worse, the destiny of our communities, nations and world is hinging on us modeling the God-given values in the family, the most important influence in society.
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