Engaging and Encouraging You
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
1 Corinthians 10:13
God can set a table in the wilderness. And that attention to how God is at work even in the desert may be a clue to how God is shaping, forming, and leading us to be who he needs us to be when he sets us in the promised land.
“At the end of every seven years you shall grant a release. And this is the manner of the release: every creditor shall release what he has lent to his neighbor. He shall not exact it of his neighbor, his brother, because the Lord's release has been proclaimed.
Deuteronomy 15:1-2
In terms of the value that they are rewarded for their labor, servants are paid for their work, while slaves are not. They are forced to labor for free, and the most that the fortunate among them can expect in return is basic human kindness.
The dreams were not his to defend, for he believes that the interpretation are from God. He has no right to twist it, nor to soften the blow. Joseph believes that this speaking God is incredibly big -- bigger than prison, dreams, life and death. He stands above all, and supreme over all.
Potiphar is the captain of Pharaoh's guard who is said to have purchased Joseph as a slave and, impressed by his intelligence, makes him the master of his household. Potiphar's wife, who was known for her infidelities, took a liking to Joseph, and attempted to seduce him. When Joseph refused her advances, and ran off, leaving his outer vestment in her hands, she retaliated by falsely accusing him of trying to rape her, and Potiphar had Joseph imprisoned.
The Lord was with Joseph. This preposition shows proximity or association God calls His people to be in fellowship with Him. It is used frequently to show the promises of God towards us, or to affirm that God is with us, or our petitions to God to be with us. Everywhere God meets us He places on us a moral demand.
A Servant of God invests himself in the lives of his people so that the church community is challenged to grow to be more like Christ daily. A Servant of God doesn’t abuse the power given to him by God but promotes mutual respect and love for one another. In 1 Timothy 3:15; Paul admonished Timothy on how to conduct himself as a servant of God. As Christians, to be a servant of God, we should understand that our actions in everything we do represent and honour the teaching of God, our Maker.
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
Romans 8:1-39
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
