It is key to understand we are here to live and do significant acts in such a time as this. Esther was in a place of royalty for just such a time as to save her people. "If I perish, I perish", shows her obedience to God. Can we carry through when the challenge lies before us?

Are you using the resources God has given you, expanding on his Kingdom? As we think about the Parable of the Talent, are we thinking about the talents with which we've been entrusted? Are we afraid of the Master?

In effort to preserve ourselves, we wear an external veneer that nowhere near reflects what is on the inside. God knows what is inside and wants us to have an inside that matches the outside. Where is our focus? Where is our treasure?

A church can serve as a beacon to the community. A church can be a place for family. A church can only succeed, however, when it points to the Salvation of Jesus Christ.

Building our house upon the rock. It is a comparison of how our lives are buffeted by storms. Non-Christians and Christians suffer alike, aka the storms in life. As we are building our houses of faith, we have to remember it is the foundation that determines our survivability, not the location. What is our foundation?

The verse of today's scripture is to be lived our every day. We are to hide God's word in our hearts like that of a valuable treasure. We want it so desperately that we live it in our daily lives.

What we see depends on the 'lenses in our lives'. Do we see people with value around us or do we see them as difficulties?

When we are in a relationship with Jesus Christ, we are made anew. It changes our attitudes, our outlooks and our interactions. If Jesus Christ is not in our lives, we are unwilling to change.