Regard Not Your Stuff!

 

Regard not your stuff, for the good of all the land of Egypt is yours.

—Genesis 45:20 KJV

Through miraculous circumstances, Jacob learned that his lost son, Joseph, was actually alive and had become a highly influential official in Egypt. He eagerly looked forward to his reunion with Joseph and set out for Egypt, taking his family to settle there.

When Pharaoh learned that Joseph, his second in command, had discovered his family, and that they were going to travel to Egypt, he said to Joseph, as recorded in Genesis 45:17-23 KJV:

Say unto thy brethren, “This do ye; lade your beasts, and go, get you unto the land of Canaan; And take your father and your households, and come unto me: and I will give you the good of the land of Egypt, and ye shall eat the fat of the land.”

Now thou art commanded, this do ye; take you wagons out of the land of Egypt for your little ones, and for your wives, and bring your father, and come. Also regard not your stuff; for the good of all the land of Egypt is your’s.

And the children of Israel did so: and Joseph gave them wagons, according to the commandment of Pharaoh, and gave them provision for the way. To all of them he gave each man changes of raiment; but to Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver, and five changes of raiment. And to his father he sent after this manner; ten asses laden with the good things of Egypt, and ten she asses laden with corn and bread and meat for his father by the way.

Certainly, we can see echoes of Jacob’s experience occurring in the New Testament. Jesus spoke several times in the Gospels about the stuff of life, and the dangers of regarding it too highly. Can you see the parallels to Joseph’s story recorded in the text of the Sermon on the Mount, found in Matthew 6:19-21 KJV?

Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

As our lives on this earth come to an end, we will take a journey to God our Father. He knows we will have no need for the stuff of this life because all the good of Heaven will be ours. In fact, as stated in the Scripture passage quoted above from Matthew 6:19-21, Jesus admonished us to lay up treasures in Heaven.

As I pondered these words of Jesus, I wondered what the actual treasures were to which Jesus referred. The Psalmist, writing in Psalm 119:89-91 ESV, states these words:

Forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens. Your faithfulness endures to all generations; you have established the earth, and it stands fast. By your appointment they stand this day, for all things are your servants.

These are the kind of treasures that endure in heaven. They cannot be destroyed by moths or by vermin. Thieves cannot break in an steal these treasurers. Therefore, these treasures are the ones we must lay up in heaven: the word of God, the recognition that God remains always faithful, the reality that God created the heavens, the earth, and all things. The enduring truth that God is above all things and He alone is worthy of all glory, honor, and praise.

The people whom we have had the opportunity to introduce to the mysteries of God and have influenced for Christ also belong to the treasury of Heaven. Some may have directly come to know Christ’s salvation through our witness. Others drew more closely to Him through our lively participation in their lives, through our teaching, our preaching, and our sharing with them what God means to us and what He has done to transform our lives.

Like the Parable of the Rich Fool in Luke 12:13-21, we read a story from Jesus about a person who lived for treasures on earth and worked for a padded, comfortable, enjoyable retirement, rather than serving others with his wealth. In telling this parable, Jesus reminded us that God controls the length of life, and that all of those treasures we store up to give us the future on earth that we think we control constitute a lie.

Let us consider how we might put away the importance of our stuff in exchange for the eternal riches of God’s grace. That is a most appropriate eternal exchange!

 

 

In Charge

 

He has put his angels in charge of you to watch over you wherever you go.

—Psalm 91:11 NCV

Do you enjoy being in charge? The person in charge usually gets to sway opinions and the direction of the group that he or she leads: the college homecoming festivities, the annual yearbook, the decorating committee, the gala banquet, or even the Pastor Nominating Committee. The one in charge has a great deal of responsibility. But, being in charge can certainly feel good.

Joseph must have felt highly honored, yet very much surprised, when Potiphar, an official in Pharaoh’s court of Egypt, put Joseph in charge of everything Potiphar owned. Genesis 39:3-4 tells us:

When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household, and he entrusted to his care everything he owned.

We don’t know much about Potiphar. Perhaps he felt great relief in having someone so competent as Joseph acting as his steward. In Genesis 39:6, the Scripture states:

“So he left in Joseph’s care everything he had; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.”

This statement makes me wonder if Potiphar had more than he could handle and had become anxious about it. He allowed Joseph’s help to relieve him of the anxiety he had over everything. Joseph certainly was a highly competent, fiercely loyal, and dedicated steward.

It is important to note that a steward is defined as: “a servant or slave elevated to a position of responsibility in his or her master’s kingdom.” Even though he or she remains a servant or slave, a steward thinks only of what is the very best action to take, in order to support his or her master. A steward sets aside any personal feelings or desires that he or she may have. Instead, a steward focuses every bit of his or her attention on the wishes of his or her master.

As I think about Potiphar turning over everything he valued to the stewardship of Joseph, it reminds me of times when responsibility has weighed heavily on me. What do we do when we have neither the ability, nor the confidence, to handle something with which we have to deal?

Does God give us tasks with which He knows we will struggle? What if we are given a child with special needs that, in our own strength, we have no way of meeting? We may feel the weight of not having the wherewithal to successfully perform the tasks that make up our responsibility. Yet, we find ourselves seemingly in charge.

Or, what about a dangerous job assignment that feels way too much for us? Or, helping a parent who no longer can stay in his or her home alone? Or, what about guiding our business, in order to make enough income to support our employees and satisfy our stockholders? Or, what about … Well, you can name some situation you have faced where you were placed in charge.

In puzzling over this dilemma, I remembered what the Psalmist told us in Psalm 91. This Psalm is chock-full of promises of protection and help for the person “who dwells in the shelter of the Most High and rests in the shadow of the Almighty.”

When it comes to the really important things in our lives, what a relief to know that God has not put us solely in charge. Instead, in order to supply protection and help, God has actually put His mighty angels in charge!

How easy it must be for them to handle the problem. Like Potiphar, we don’t have to concern ourselves with anything! Let us rest easy and give praise to God.

 

 

A Boatload of Trouble

 

And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

—Matthew 14:33

The disciples had just helped feed 5,000 people near the Sea of Galilee (or Lake of Gennesaret). They must have been tired. However, Matthew 14:22 relates that Jesus told them to get into a boat and go across the Sea to Bethsaida. By the time they reached about half way, they had a “Mid-trip Crisis.” A furious storm came up, and because the wind blew against them, they strained at the oars. Have you ever felt you were “straining at the oars” against a storm in which someone else had involved you?

To make this even harder to understand, as He waited on shore, Jesus could see them in this predicament. And, for reasons that only He would understand, He waited—until sometime between 3:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m.—to go to their aid out on the Sea. Instead, Jesus stayed where He was and prayed.

This story contains the miracle of Jesus walking on the water and terrifying the disciples as He came alongside them. His words must have brought great relief to these hardened fishermen, who saw many storms on this Sea. He spoke to them: “Take courage! It is I. Don’t be afraid.” Then He climbed into the boat and the wind died down. John 6:20 adds that:

Immediately the boat reached the shore where they were heading.

Jesus may leave us in the boat straining at the oars for a period of time way beyond what we think our strength can bear. He wants to build our endurance and our faith. But, what sweet relief we feel when we know He has come to us and joined us in the storm. He can speak peace to us in that terrible place. And, what is more, He can help us immediately get to our destination.

When we feel that God has left us alone in the storm, we can be assured by this story that He watches us and prays for us like He did for the disciples. We can have confidence to keep going until such time as He reaches us and climbs into our boat!

 

 

"Daddy Do It"

 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

—2 Corinthians 12:9

We’ve all heard a toddler say, “Me do it!” Later on, when her arms don’t fit into the sleeves right, we often hear the toddler say, “Daddy do it!” Children learn by trying to do things by themselves. Then, they sometimes learn that they need help. We should learn the same kind of lesson, and often we do, over and over.

2 Corinthians 11:30, 32-33 records these words of the Apostle Paul, in the city of Damascus:

“If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness … the governor under King Aretas had the city of the Damascenes guarded in order to arrest me. But I was lowered in a basket from a window in the wall and slipped through his hands.”

The Apostle had learned that he needed God’s help. It’s a lesson we need to keep in mind at all times.

Whether persistent, or just stubborn, some of us learn the hard way that when we try to do things on our own, even when we’re trying to serve the Lord, we come up short and often fail to succeed. Remember Sarai and her solution to “help” God give Abram the son He had promised? In this story recorded through Genesis 16, we read how Sarai gave her slave girl, Hagar, to her husband Abram in order to try to fulfill God’s grand design. That plan certainly did not go well for her—or in fact for us, looking at the tumult for centuries in the Middle East.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, when the officers of the temple guard came to arrest Jesus, one of Jesus’ followers cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant, thinking he was doing Jesus a favor. Instead, Jesus rebuked His follower, touched the servant, and healed the man! This is recorded in Luke 22:47-51.

We often get ourselves into irreversible trouble when we say, “Me do it!” Most often, our Heavenly Father would rather we let Him do it without our help. Or, God would have us agree to learn from Him in the work He wants us to accomplish with His help. What’s the expression? “When you have dug yourself into a hole, stop digging!”

I am reminded of an old Swedish hymn with these words: ¹

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,
When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,
When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,
Our Father’s full giving is only begun.

Refrain:
His love has no limit; His grace has no measure;
His pow’r has no boundary known unto men.
For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,
He giveth, and giveth, and giveth again!

______________________

1 Flint, Annie Johnson. “He Giveth More Grace.” Dayton, Ohio: Lillenas Publishing Co., 1969. Verse 2.

 

 

I Wonder as I Wander

 

The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”

—Acts 23:11

As the events of their daily lives unfolded, even God’s choicest servants must have asked: “Who, What, Where, When, How?” Yet, God rarely answers these questions when He calls us to His service, or makes a promise to us, or places us in circumstances we don’t understand.

I wonder what Paul must have thought God wanted him to do in Rome? He certainly seemed driven to get there. Perhaps Paul looked back at the way God had used his preaching among Gentiles, but probably never considered that God intended him to spend years locked up and away from the crowds.

Paul did preach to a few individuals that were allowed to visit him. And, Paul also preached to the Roman leaders. During that time, Paul also wrote the letters we know as the Books of Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, First and Second Timothy, Titus and Philemon, encouraging and instructing all of us in God’s ways.

In the Old Testament, when Joseph, son of Jacob, had two dreams as a teen that his brothers would bow down to him, he got a verbal trouncing by his older siblings! The act of bragging, and his status with their father as favorite son, made the brothers intensely jealous and caused them to carry out a plot to sell Joseph into slavery in Egypt.

I wonder how many times Joseph thought of those long ago dreams and wondered if he had misread God’s promises. Now, he lived in Egypt, far from home and under the control of none other than Pharaoh himself. Even more confounding must have been his subsequent imprisonment because of a false accusation. He made a name for himself interpreting dreams for servants of Pharaoh, and of Pharaoh himself. But, what about his dreams?

But, after 22 years in Egypt, amazingly Joseph confessed to his brothers, in Genesis 45:7:

“But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.”

I wonder how many times the teen-age girl, Hadassah, questioned how and why she ended up in the harem of King Xerxes in Persia and eventually became known as Queen Esther. Certainly, she had heard the stories containing promises from God that He would take His people from the lands of their exile back to their home country. How did she fit into this plan, especially now as she held such a position of power and responsibility in this foreign country?

Only as her life played out did she realize that God had given her a unique place from which to save God’s people and literally change history. Not without personal danger did she agree to God’s plan. She heard God’s word through her faithful cousin, Mordecai, as recorded in Esther 4:14:

For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?

I wonder sometimes about my own pathway, and you must wonder about your pathway, as well. “What, where, how, why, and who”—God is at work in order to play out His divine plan in us, but what lies ahead? We can all take heart with these words from Isaiah 55:8-9:

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

 

 

Caught and Restored

 

Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore that person gently.

—Galatians 6:1

Throughout every church in the United States of America and around the world, beautiful, even amazing, stories of forgiveness and restoration abound:

• Everyone would soon know! She slept with a man outside of her marriage and now carried his baby. Her husband, who was not a believer, immediately filed for divorce. At first, it caused shock and disappointment in the church. But, after the woman confessed to the sin, the women of the church presented her with a beautiful new robe to symbolize their love, forgiveness, and restoration. When her baby was born, the entire church celebrated this new gift of life.
  
  
• The man obviously had ruined his family with his alcoholism. But, once he confessed to his church family, they received him back and came alongside him to restore him. They facilitated his entry into a rehabilitation program and celebrated his release and each day, thereafter, that he remained sober.
  
  
• Another person had been imprisoned for a shameful crime. But, upon hearing the confession and repentance of this individual, and upon this one’s discharge from prison, the church joyfully received this one back among the church family and helped this one to get back into the community as a contributing and important member.
  
  

These instances of forgiveness and restoration should remind us of the story found in Luke 15:11-32, that tells of the man we know as the Prodigal Son. How surprised and loved he must have felt when his father not only welcomed him home, but called his friends and put on a lavish party for this wayward son, receiving and restoring him.

Do we seek to receive and restore those who have obviously “fallen,” but who have come back to us? Do we respond like the father in the story? Or, do we act like the jealous older brother, who complained that his father had never given him a party, even though he had long behaved faithfully? What a witness of grace the church can give to the world if it responds like the hurt and grieving father when the son finally returns.

“Older brothers” will always stand by and criticize rather than responding with grace and mercy. Not everyone will do the kind and merciful thing. But, God will use those who recognize the glory of redemption and forgiveness in the life of one who has been at the bottom and whom Christ has raised up. May we please our heavenly Father by lifting up others as He has lifted us up out of the miry clay of sin.

Praise to our King, who rescues and restores us, as this old hymn tells us: ¹

Praise, my soul, the King of heaven,
to his feet your tribute bring;
Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven,
who, like me, his praise should sing?
Alleluia! Alleluia! Praise the everlasting King.

Father-like, he tends and spares us;
well our feeble frame he knows;
In his hands he gently bears us,
rescues us from all our foes.
Alleluia! Alleluia! Widely as his mercy goes.

______________________

1 Lyte, Henry. “Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven. ” Hymn in the Public Domain.

 

 

Rain that Refreshes

 

“You gave abundant showers, O God; you refreshed your weary inheritance.”

—Psalm 68:9

“Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”

—Acts 3:19

Without water, we would all die. We rely on God to supply the rain in order for us to live. I am amazed at how quickly my drooping indoor plants revive once I pour a little refreshing water on them.

We humans can live in a dehydrated condition for a while. But, without natural water and without God-given spiritual water, we cannot live with the vigor, joy, and beauty that God intended when He made us.

A deficiency in the electrolytes that keep our bodies’ electrical systems in balance shows up in lethargy, fatigue, heart rhythm problems, dry skin, and a host of other dire consequences that appear when we have not had enough water. Our bodies only become refreshed with a return to proper hydration.

Let me ask each of us this question: How are our “spiritual electrolytes”? Those of our churches? Can we detect a loss of spiritual hydration there? Sometimes, we hardly know when our spiritual posture sags from lack of the refreshment that God wants to provide for us.

In fact, Jesus addressed this problem with the Samaritan woman in John 4:1-45 and called Himself the “Living Water.” Once she drank of His life-giving spiritual water, she left her water jug, ran rejoicing, and called her neighbors to come at once to meet with Jesus.

In John 7:1-24, we read of Jesus preaching to the crowds at the Feast of Tabernacles, and calling them to come to Him for living water. Like those in that long-ago crowd who responded to Jesus, once we learn to rely on this “Water of Life,” we will need the refreshing and the life-giving health it gives in order to serve Him well.

When we fall into patterns of mundane worship, when we droop in our service to God, when our hearts do not beat with vigor for Christ, and when our tired service yields no fruit for others, we know that we need to stop and ask God for a refreshment of the “Living Water” that only He can give us through His precious Son. Fortunately, we only need to ask Him and He will surely supply us with this “Living Water.”

Let us pray that we will clearly see our weariness and, in response, ask God for “times of refreshing” before we dry up and blow away. Let us ask God for His living water, so that we can refresh others as He refreshes us.

I particularly like the way this hymn describes such a prayer:¹

Refresh Thy people on their toilsome way;
Lead us from night to never-ending day;
Fill all our lives with love and grace divine;
And glory, laud, and praise be ever Thine. Amen.

______________________

1 Roberts, Daniel C. God of Our Fathers. Public Domain.