Prayer: Father, may I embrace the attitude and resolve of Joseph in my relationship with You. Thank You for your abundant mercy and grace! Amen.
Reading: Genesis 39 key: 7-9
7 Now after these things, the master’s wife lifted up her eyes at Joseph and said, “Come, lie down with me!”
8 But he refused. “Look,” he said to his master’s wife, “my master doesn’t think about anything in the house with me in charge, and everything that belongs to him he’s entrusted into my hand. 9 No one in this house is greater than I, and he has withheld nothing from me—except you, because you are his wife. So how could I commit this great evil and sin against God?”
Attention: Many a young man has bowed to the spirit of seduction. In my generation that attitude was “do your own thing” and “if it feels good, do it.” The 60’s and 70’s were an era of “free love.” It wasn’t that love was free of cost or consequence, but the attitude was one of the freedoms of sexual gratification. Among Christian youth, the attitude was God understands our humanness. Therefore, we have a free pass.
Joseph, however, understands his relationship with Adonai and with his employer. Moses’ record, reveals to us the level of “trust” and “integrity” which exists between Potiphar and Joseph, “my master doesn’t think about anything (no worries or concerns) in the house with me in charge, and everything that belongs to him he’s entrusted into my hand.” Why would I want to harm “my master”? For Joseph, such behavior was inconceivable.
Joseph’s success came as a result of Adonai’s presence with Joseph (vs. 2). Dare I ask that if we were cognizant of God’s presence with us during every hour of every day, would we be vulnerable to seduction in any form? I have many times in my journaling referenced scriptures in which Yeshua (Jesus) told us He would be with us. Even His name, “Emmanuel” means God with us. What difference would it make if you knew God’s eyes were on you all the time? Our behavior tends to be different when we know we are being watched. Have we come to the point where we are the same whether we are under the scrutiny of watching eyes or not?
Have we come to the resolve of Joseph, that to sin against Adonai (God) is inconceivable? To sin against our wives and families is inconceivable. May our resolve be to live in integrity with God and man.
Action: I resolve to live my life in integrity with God and man.
Yield: I yield to Adonai as my master.
Engage: I engage with Adonai in a lifestyle of obedience.
Relationship: I acknowledge Adonai as my Sovereign King.
Prayer: Father, thank You for the example of Joseph, who as a young man, resisted the temptation of seduction from Potiphar’s wife. May I also flee and remove myself from temptation. In Yeshua’ s name, amen.
Memory Verse: Proverbs 6: 23-25
23 For the mitzvah is a lamp, Torah a light,
and corrective discipline the way of life,
24 keeping you from the immoral woman,
from a wayward wife’s smooth tongue.
25 Do not lust in your heart after her beauty
or let her captivate you with her eyelids
Music Video: Lauryn Hill & Tanya Blount—His Eye Is On The Sparrow https://youtu.be/H74FBgOZTDw
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”