Joseph ( Increase )

 When I think about Joseph, I think about, integrity, forgiveness and increase.  I read in Genesis ch 37, 38 and 39 that he suffered jealousy, rejection, hatred and physical assault from his brothers who, when they saw that their father loved Joseph more than he loved them, hated Joseph and could not speak peaceably about him.   Genesis chapter 37, v.8 says that they hated him for his dreams and for his words, and yet all he did was tell the dreams without any opinion of his own about what they might mean.

Instead of considering that the dreams may have come from God and have a mysterious meaning yet to be revealed, for prophets and dreamers were already accepted amongst God’s people, they became jealous of him.   Their father however, in spite of rebuking Joseph, kept the saying in mind.

Joseph was also to suffer false accusation from another man’s wife, imprisonment when innocent, and ingratitude from fellow prisoners amongst other things, and yet there appears to be no thoughts of revenge from Joseph towards the perpetrators of his sufferings.  Whether he was in his father’s house, a pit, an Egyptian’s house, a prison or a palace, his lifeline remained the same, simple trust in God.

Although Joseph was brought to be a slave in Egypt, his high ranking Egyptian master, Potiphar, saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord caused all that he did to prosper in his hands.  This in turn brought Potiphar to promote Joseph to overseer in his house over all that he had, which in turn brought blessing on the Egyptians house for Joseph’s sake.  What a wonderful example of how, if we as God’s people, serve faithfully in the world according to God’s principles wherever He might have us to be, God will not only reveal Himself to the world through us, but will also bless those who acknowledge God in us, and will bless us through them.  God is asking us only, whilst we are in the world but not of this world, to humbly proclaim Him to the world through the form of being a servant in the world while maintaining the form of His Son Jesus Christ through the presence of the Holy Spirit within us.

It is noticeable that, although Joseph’s brothers were to initiate God’s plan to place Joseph in a position where he would eventually be used to provide food for his family by throwing him into a pit, they were to play no other part in the plan.  They were even stopped from making any profit from selling him to the Ishmaelites.   It is almost as if  Joseph’s brothers were used without greatly being accused.

Joseph trusted in God and put Him first in all that he did in spite of where God placed him.  By doing this, God’s plan for the rest of Joseph’s family came into being.  

Sometimes in our lives, as with Joseph, something done by man that appears evil at the time to us is meant by God for good for the benefit of others, whether in the church or in the world.  Though we may not understand why we are sometimes placed in what appear to be difficult circumstances, if we put our trust one hundred percent in God, knowing that all things will work together for good because of our love for Him, shown through our obedience to Him in those testing circumstances, then not only will we be kept in perfect peace, but out part in the salvation of others will also be allowed to be worked out as one plants, one waters, and God adds the increase.

BLESSINGS

May all the blessings God can bring
be gathered with the hand of Spring
and strewn across your path each day
as Jesus guides you on your way
May shadows of your broken dreams
be always lightened by sunbeams
and you receive the very best
of all that God for us has blessed

An enemy stood at my door

 Our journey in the Lord is ongoing, and some time ago I felt led to write a poem that reflected my times of going through trials and changing from what the spiritual enemy encouraged me to do to what the Lord was bringing me to do. The enemy does not like it when we turn against him and his sinful ways in order that we might learn God's ways, but the more we act upon what the Lord speaks to us through the teaching of the Holy Spirit the more we can remove sin from our lives. The poem is called

An enemy stood at my door

An enemy stood at my door - I recognized this foe
his tap was soft at first and he was calling out my name
He’d tried to rob mankind of truth a long, long time ago
and now he’d come to me to do the same
His knock grew louder with each strike - his voice began to rise
my heart was wildly beating and my mind was filled with fear
With curses pouring from his mouth he rent the air with lies
I froze at what I could not fail to hear
Within the door I looked around and sought a place to hide
a sanctuary of safety from the taunting and the jeers
The enemy like thunder now began to rage outside
with trembling hands I tried to block my ears
Then suddenly within the room a warrior appeared
His form was bathed in light and He was brandishing a sword
The power and the fury of the enemy I feared
diminished as I recognized my Lord
‘Don’t be afraid child’ Jesus said ‘at all that you have heard
this foe will turn to ashes and his power fall as dust
Take refuge in my presence as I speak God’s Holy word
your peace will then return because you trust
The words that I shall speak to you are Spirit and are life
they bring into existence that which does not yet appear
and have a power of their own to banish all the strife
that’s coming from this enemy you fear’
I looked into my Saviour’s eyes and knew His words were true
that God had sent Him to my aid this enemy to fight
He said ‘ My child just stay within the light surrounding you
your foe dwells in the darkness of the night ’
and he will come to carnal mind to try to steal the seed
that I have planted in you as you seek me every day
Hold fast to all I’ve told you - to his threatening pay no heed
when dawn arrives the darkness must give way

The more we take every thought captive and bring it into obedience to the Word of God the more we grow in the Lord as a child of God, not letting the devil win. 

FAITH, the substance of things hoped for

 Often I have been anxious, sick or down in spirit and, as a result of the Holy Spirit highlighting specific scriptures to me when I have sought God in each situation, I have been kept safe and given peace of mind.  I am aware that 'faith' has to come by hearing, and 'hearing' by the Word of God (Romans ch. 10 v.17), and so I would encourage all who read this post to seek that faith for themselves through the Word.

I hope that the reading of this post might in some way enable the reader to identify with me as a Christian, and rejoice in the fact that we can rid ourselves of the Satanic ruler of this world's grip on us by trusting in Jesus, and receive all the blessings promised in Him, remembering that with God all things are possible.

'They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. ' 

Revelation ch. 12 v.11

'My mouth will tell of Your righteous acts, of Your deeds of salvation all the day, for their number is past my knowledge.

With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come, I will praise Your righteousness, Yours alone.' Psalm 71 vs. 15 - 16

Observations on Faith

One of the explanations of the word 'faith' in my dictionary is 'acceptance of divine revelation apart from absolute proof', and this is the interpretation which fits very aptly the kind of faith that God requires that we have in order to not only please Him, but also to cause to be substance the things that we hope for , as shown in Hebrews ch. 11 v.1.
Faith is fruitful only when it is operated through acceptance of what the Lord is revealing to us, and obedience apart from reasoning.  In fact, reasoning will destroy faith because the carnal mind can only accept what it has already learned, not what it has yet to learn, and will try to convince it's host to do only what is pleasant.
We are told in Ecclesiastes ch. 8 vs. 2 - 5a:- 'Keep the king's command, and because of your sacred oath be not dismayed, go from his presence, do not delay when the matter is unpleasant, for he does whatever he pleases. For the word of the king is supreme, and who may say to him 'What are you doing'.  He who obeys a command will meet no harm,' and this appears to have been the attitude which motivated Abraham when told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac.  Abraham believed that, regardless of how it appeared to be to his natural mind, God's promise could not be annulled if he acted on God's instruction. 

God is neither the author of confusion nor a man that He should lie, and in Genesis ch. 21 v.2 we see that God told Abraham that through Isaac would his descendants be named. Yet in Genesis ch. 22 v.2 had told him to offer his son as a burnt offering. 
We see in v. 1 however that the reason for this was that God was testing him, and we see that Abraham still believed that God would keep His promise of him having descendants through his son Isaac, because in v. 8 He says to Isaac 'God will provide Himself a lamb'.
Way back in Genesis ch. 15 v.5 God had told Abraham that his own son would be his heir.  In v.6 we are told that Abraham believed God and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. So we see that believing God is righteousness, the kind of belief which does not waver in spite of the testing which will come to prove it.  This is FAITH!  

We are told in James ch.2 v.26 that just as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so faith apart from works is dead. James had given the example of how Abraham had been told by God to sacrifice his son Isaac. He had actually carried out the instruction which God had given him without question, even as far as the actually stretching forth his hand to take the knife to slay his son.  In verse 22 we are told that faith was not only active along with his works but was COMPLETED by his works. Yet to his natural mind God telling Abraham in Genesis chapter 22 v2 to sacrifice his son did not go together with what God had told him in Genesis ch. 21 v.12 'through Isaac shall your descendants be named.

However, if we look at verse 1 of Genesis chapter 22 we are told that God was testing Abraham.  So we see that God tests His people.  This a very firm principle throughout both the old testament and the new testament. We are told not to just be hearers of His Word spoken to us, but to be 'doers' of that Word, and this is the 'works' we must do - we must ACT upon the the Word spoken to us by God through the Holy Spirit, regardless of what the carnal mind is trying to tell us. Whatever the Lord tells us to do in our walk with Him we should endeavour to please Him, even if what He says to us seems unpleasant.

Hebrews ch. 12 v. 25 states:- 'See that you do not refuse Him Who is speaking'  A whole generation perished in the wilderness because they did not listen to the voice of the Lord.  Jesus says 'He who hears my Word and does it is like a man who builds his house on a rock.'  Luke ch. 6 v.49

I hope that what I have shared emphasises that the Holy Spirit brings to our attention the importance of being obedient to the Lord's Word if we are to be like Him.

The Path

 

Follow the path of righteousness, the road to the Father's heart,

follow His Son as He leads you on, from His ways do not depart.

Follow the path that leads to life, the way that we all must take. 

Yes, follow the ways of Jesus, the Saviour Who died for our sake.

The Jewels of a Crown

 The light of the early morning sun shone on the droplets of rain that hung suspended between each petal around the base of the French Marigold in my window box. They sparkled like a diamond coronet. I have seen nothing as beautiful in any jeweller's shop window.

I saw a simile in the Christian ministry. The 'Water of the Word' that the Lord would drop from Heaven would be the crown, the only 'coronet' that the world would see.  Our evangelizing would be the only visible sign of our being children of God (which we become when we are born again believers) to a darkened world, and the only means to attaining to that ministry of evangelism would be for us to be transformed into children of God by allowing that very 'water' itself to change us first.

'For like the jewels of a crown they shall shine on His land' Zechariah ch.9v.16.

Zechariah ch.9 has a very spiritual connection to what is going on in these days.

Rapture

I feel led to re-post something I posted some time ago.

Some time ago I had a dream in which I was looking at certain stars in the sky.  As i looked at them they appeared to grow in explosive glory, yet were not destroyed.  It was absolutely beautiful.  My husband was stood nearby and I asked him to look at the stars, but when he looked nothing happened, the stars remained normal.  then some other people came along who were unbelievers, and I asked them to look at the same stars.  Again nothing happened.  A short time after I had the dream I bought some new gold coloured curtains, and when I got them home and went to take them out of the packet I noticed they were called 'rapture', and I realized that the pattern on them was very much like the exploding stars that I had seen in my dream.  The word 'rapture' means 'to be carried to a state of extreme joy', and that was exactly the state I had been in, watching the stars in my dream.

Shortly after I went to the church that I was attending at the time, and the pastor was saying that he and the family had visited a waterfall in a local park.  Then a lady spoke of waterfalls of wine, the pastor following on speaking of how new wine could not be put into old wineskins but had to be put into new wineskins.  I noticed that the lady who spoke on 'waterfalls of wine' had a dress on with an almost identical pattern to my curtains, only the background colour was brown instead of gold. 
I felt that something was being pointed out to me here, that the gold background represented the Lord and the brown background represented the earth, and that the pattern on both the curtains and the dress represented the heavenly glory that Christians should bear, the Glory of the Lord, except that the brown dress represented something earthly, an old wineskin perhaps.
 

I told my son, who moved to the area recently, that the waterfalls were there, because he had said that when he moved down here, he wanted to visit many of the waterfalls in the area.  He said he knew of the waterfalls and that they were partially man made.  Again I felt that something was being pointed out to me, that the waterfalls were partially man made and the dress with the brown background colour could be speaking spiritually of man's interference with God's word and the Holy Spirit in some way and that if it was, then the Lord would reveal more to me if I prayed and waited.

Some time after, I was reading 2 Kings chapter 2 where the men of the city were telling Elisha that the situation of the city of Jericho was pleasant but the water was bad and the land was unfruitful.  Elisha asked for a new bowl and put salt in it.  Then he went to the spring and threw salt in it, and the word of the Lord came to him to say that the water was made wholesome and that neither death nor miscarriage would come from it.

After I had read this I was thinking about sharing my thoughts with the pastor at the church, and I reached for my UCB daily reading book.  When I opened to the reading for the day it was saying that we all have gaps and that the best way to handle the weaknesses was to work together and it was encouraging us to work more together and not to be like  Diotrephes who not only refused to welcome the brethren, but also stopped those who wanted to welcome them.

I was about to put up on my front room wall a print of two geese painted originally in watercolour.  I was reminded of a book I have called 'Why geese fly farther than eagles' The following is a paragraph from that book which reflects to me the way the body of Christ should function as stated in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 16 '....... joined and knit together by every joint with which it is supplied, when each part is working properly, makes bodily growth and up builds itself in love.'

 

' When the head goose grabs the wind, air is displaced, which then rushes up to reclaim its space only to see the smiling face of the bird flying behind, whose wings just happen to be in the downward position - a very dangerous condition, which doesn't last for long, because the upward rush gives them a push, and they're right back up where they belong.  This goose then grabs the air again, causing another upward wind, which lifts the bird behind.  And so it goes on down the line.  So the head goose breaks the wind, and all the rest are carried by him, with very little effort, I've heard, on the part of any one bird.  When the head goose has had enough, he or she simply drops back and depends on another bird for strength when strength is what is lacked.

So that's how I found out how the goose can fly from up north to way down south and back again.  But she cannot do it alone, you see.  It's something that must be done in community.  These days it's a popular notion, and people swell with emotion and pride when they think of themselves on the eagle-side, solitary, self-sufficient, strong.  But we are what we are.  That's something we cannot choose.  Though many would wish to be seen as an eagle, I think God made most like the goose.'

Last Sunday the pastor of the church was saying to my friend and myself that if anyone has anything they want to share during the service they have to speak to the appointed convener about it and he will decide whether it should be shared or not.  A few Sundays ago it was preached in church that if people did not go to the doctors with certain sicknesses they would die.  I have been trusting in the Lord solely for a particular healing  and when I got home that day I sought the Lord regarding what had been spoken in church and I opened my Bible to read.  On the page in front of me was a verse in Psalm 118 that I had underlined some time ago.  It reads ' I shall not die, but I shall live, and recount the deeds of the Lord.'  I asked the Lord if He was speaking this word to me, closed my Bible, and opened to exactly the same page, with the same underlined verse speaking to me.

 

I have to ask, ' If I had asked the Lord this question in church that morning and opened my Bible to this verse twice, would I have been allowed to share this with the church or would the convener have thought that it went against what was being preached and disallowed it, thereby denying this testimony which might have strengthened and encouraged somebody else ?.'

 

Surely there can only be one convener in the church, the Holy Spirit, and are we guilty of trying to interfere with His work by bringing in our own rules instead of following the guidelines of the scriptures when we come together. Daniel ch. 2 v.44 reads:- 'And in the days of these kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever.'  

 

We must not be afrail of a little 'salt' in case it might offend.  As in the story of Elisha in Jericho, it may bring a blessing from the Lord and make the land more fruitful.  We may even, without realizing it, be denying ourselves of having the fullness of all that the Lord has for us by not allowing the body of Christ to function fully as it was intended to.

Why, in my dream, did not my husband or the unbelievers see the full glory of the stars in the heavens?  I could understand why the unbelievers did not see it, but my husband has been baptized and believes in Jesus.  Was he representing somebody who believes but can not see the full glory because he is guided largely by worldly wisdom and knowledge?  In order to be carried to that 'extreme state of joy'  Do we need to be concentrating more on getting rid of the old brown (earthly) wineskins and putting on our new gold (Christ like )ones?

Touching Your hand

Touching Your hand I feel a power in me

walking Your way leads me into my destiny

all that I am is what You're making me

Your grace in my life is setting me free

You are my strength, death has no power in me

the battle is won, You are my song of victory

Where there's no fear there is no enemy

Your love in my heart is setting me free

For You are the Father's precious breath of life to me

my soul feels Your love that stirs within me

With You in my life I can be all I am meant to be

each day as you teach me Your ways

Now is the time - in You must my spirit dwell

time to break free from my shadowy prison cell

Now is the time, time for my soul to rise

time to awake and open my eyes

Kissed by Your mercy, bathed in Your tenderness

now I awake to the touch of Your sweet caress

Fear lies behind me lost in the cold of night

sweet love lies ahead in the warmth of Your light

For You are the Son that melts this cold heart of mine

and You are the lamp that lights my darkness

My prayer to You Lord is that within my life You will shine

each day as You lead my along