What's in the Word Wednesday Wow what a read I had this afternoon...I am still plugging along through Exploring Genesis... I have 65 pages until I am finished.
I was reading about Gen. 39:1-6 about Joseph, sold as a slave and finally ending up in Egypt. 'Evidently Joseph decided, once the initial stunning shock was absorbed, that God had some wise purpose in allowing him to be sold as a slave. "All things work together for good to those that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose," he might well have assured himself.'...'Thus these bonds will no longer be the bonds of a slave, they will be the bonds of the Lord. I shall consider myself God's bondslave and in all my ways and words I shall endeavor to please Him.'
'So often adverse circumstances find us bemoaning our fate instead of looking for ways to glorify the Lord Jesus in them and through them. We have to learn life's adversities before we can be trusted with life's advancements.' WOW
The author further goes on with this:
'Who would have thought that any good thing could have come out of the notorious Ravensbruck death camp of the Nazis? Surely when she was incarcerated there as a prisoner 66730, Corrie ten Boom must have wondered at her fate. Yet, in that place of torment and horror, that devoted and courageous servant of the Lord Jesus decided if she had to live in that suburb of hell, where the only means of exit for a Jew or a Jew-sympathizer was up the smokestack of the crematorium, if death was to stare here in the face every day, if she must life daily with spine-chilling atrocities, if she must be subjected to indignity and intimidation, if she must be foul with vermin, whipped, forever hungry, terrorized day and night-why then, she would be the very best inmate Ravensbruck horror camp had ever known. She would be a Christian. So there, in barracks number 28, she held clandestine Bible classes and taught her wretched fellow inmates how to face life and death with Jesus Christ.
as a result of her agony, God was able to open up for her in later years a worldwide ministry. Her story has been told in print and on the platform. It has been made into a major film and shown in movie houses around the world. It has thrilled and challenged and encouraged countless millions of people. Often she must have wondered why, after she had risked her life to often to rescue persecuted Jews, God should have allowed her to be piled into a boxcar with eighty other frightened human beings, packed in so tight that they could hardly breathe; why she should be forced to endure such thirst, such unspeakable filth, such naked horror, such sorrow over the death of her weaker sister. But now she knows! Through her life and ministry thousands upon thousands have been led to give their lives to the Lord. God meant it unto good.'
Wow, do not underestimate the testimony of your life and the trials each of you are faced with.
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So reading further along, Genesis 39: 7-20 Joseph being continually tempted by a persistent Woman....Potiphars wife.
We see in the story the build up of events. The looks that Potiphar's wife gave Joseph, how she maneuvered herself so she was close to him, trying to get him alone and all the while Joseph could see what was coming and did everything possible to avoid her. Until one day she catches him alone. 'She threw aside all pretense, flung herself at him, urged and pleaded with him to accept her, but he refused! There it was, Joseph's blessed inability~ he could not lightly sin. He refused on two counts, one on the ground of simple justice, it would not be right so to defraud the master who trusted him, and he refused on the ground of his faith. He could no so sin against God. It was not "I will not" but I cannot." It was an absolute moral and spiritual impossibility for him even to contemplate the kind of action she urged. It would have been imprudent socially; it was impossible spiritually. what the woman suggested was utterly repulsive to him as a believer. what a magnificent way to say not to temptation.
That is what John has in mind when he says, "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God" (1 John 3:9). I cannot do this thing! I cannot so grieve the Holy Spirt of God.
Joseph did the only thing he could--he fled. How much temptation can be overcome simply be deliberately walking away from it. It was not cowardice; it was courage and conviction of the highest order.
God has promised He will always provide a way of escape when temptation draws near, and that he will never allow us to be tempted beyond our ability to bear. There is always a way of escape--even if it is simply running away.'
This was just wonderful to read this afternoon. I have a little area of my life that I find myself repeatedly sinning in...I had thought about these last 3 days with our Pastor's challenge to fast that this would be one thing that I could definitely fast from so I am in day 2 and the more I thought about it I thought I could do 40 days and now after reading this today....I realize I just need to flee from it and not turn back!
Hope you enjoyed the reading today~~
Yum-O The picture below does not do the fudge justice, there was so much and it was soooo thick....almost to much chocolate....but it sure did hit the spot for what I needed that night!