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"MondaythruFriday" Devotional Series
"Greg Laurie"
THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF JOSEPH Genesis 37 The story of Joseph reads like a summertime paperback thriller—family drama, international intrigue, worldwide crisis, attempted murder, and false accusations. But it is also a story of God at work, His hand guiding every aspect of the story.l Joseph’s story is your classic rags to riches tale, rising from complete obscurity and constant setbacks to become the second most powerful man in the world. He was a young man who never doubted God, and was unwilling to compromise his principles—particularly in his famous encounter with Potiphar’s wife. PRACTICAL PRINCIPLES 1. Everyone will be tempted. There’s a misconception that as you mature as a believer, temptation will become less of a problem. But the reality is that temptation—in every way, shape, or form—will always be an issue for us. Jesus was tempted at the beginning and the end of His ministry. We should expect nothing less. 2. Joseph understood that there are consequences to sin. Joseph knew his life was a testimony, and he didn’t want to discredit himself or his witness to a nonbeliever. There are no exceptions to the Scripture that says, “Your sin will find you out.” Unconfessed sin will take its toll on you and those around you; one way or another. 3. God’s standards are absolute. Joseph didn’t get a break because he dealt with hardship, or because he was a slave living in a godless culture. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, and that doesn’t change for any reason. Rather than conforming God’s Word to our culture, we should be conforming culture to God’s standards. 4. Joseph recognized that all sin is against God. It is one thing to not sin because you fear the consequences. But the greatest motive for not giving in to temptation is our love for God. Our response to temptation is a barometer of our love for God. If we truly love God, it will show itself in living righteously and resisting temptation. RELEVANT REMINDERS We might do a good job of resisting the obvious temptations, but how are you doing in the subtle ones, like jealousy or gossip? It’s easy to rationalize minor sins for whatever reason, but we are to resist all forms of evil (Psalm 97:10; Romans 12:9). That’s the only way to successfully defeat Satan (James 4:7). APPLICABLE ACTIONS Are you facing temptation right now? Don’t play around with it, or let it linger. For Joseph, losing his jacket was better than losing his morals. We should be willing to do the same. May the Lord strengthen all of us to walk closely with Him and flee all temptation.
The Place We Long For For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. I am navigationally challenged, so I like having a GPS to help keep me from getting lost. But I read about a Wisconsin motorist who actually ended up on a snowmobile trail because her GPS led her in the wrong direction. She ended up stuck in the snow and had to call 911. A deputy who responded to the call said, "People shouldn't believe everything those things tell you." A GPS can fail us. But that isn't the case with the sophisticated homing instinct God has given to certain birds. Their built-in navigational systems are probably better than our latest technology. The Manx Shearwater, for example, nests off of the coast of Wales and has an amazing homing instinct. Scientists tagged and released a number of these birds at different points around the globe to see whether they could find their way back home. In just 12 days, all the birds made their way back. One bird in particular made it all the way from Boston, traveling 250 miles a day from a place it had never been to get back home. Now that is what you call a homing instinct. God has placed a homing instinct within you and I as well, and I believe it is a homesickness for heaven. We long for a place we have never been before. We are prewired that way. The Bible tells us that God has put eternity in our hearts (see Ecclesiastes 3:11). Heaven is the real thing that we long for. Heaven is not an imitation of Earth, but it is really the other way around. Earth is the copy, the temporary dwelling place. Heaven is the real deal, the eternal dwelling place of every follower of Jesus Christ. It is the place we long for, because it is our future home.
—Hebrews 11:14
In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. Sometimes we act as though everything and anything that can be done must be done while we are living here on earth. Of course, we want to make the most of our time, because we don't determine when we are born or when we die. But we do determine how we will live our lives. We also need to know that life does not end after our time on earth; it continues in heaven. When a life is limited by disability or illness, when a life is cut short through death, we tend to think, Well, that is unfortunate. They never realized their dreams. But who is to say those dreams could not be realized on the other side? Who is to say that God would not complete on the other side what He has started on earth? When we see someone who has lived a long life but has wasted it for the most part, and then we see someone with so much promise and ability and gifting who dies unexpectedly, we think it is so unfair. But that is because we are thinking about life on earth and not realizing that life continues on. For the follower of Jesus Christ, death is not the end of life, but a continuation of it in another place. When you book a flight, sometimes you will have a stopover. I don't like stopovers myself, because sometimes things happen during stopovers. Bad weather can roll in, which can mean getting stuck there for some time. I like to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible. For the Christian, earth is just a stopover. Waiting for us on the other side is heaven. And we will arrive there sooner than we may realize.
—John 14:2-3
Measuring Up "Tekel means 'weighed'—you have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up."
Normally when most people step onto a scale, they want to weigh less. But when you step onto God's scale, you want to weigh more. You want to have substance and depth and purpose and weight to your life. When Daniel confronted the wicked King Belshazzar, he told him, "You have been weighed on the balances and have not measured up." Effectively he was saying, "Belshazzar, you are a spiritual lightweight. You have done nothing with your life."
The Bible tells us that all believers will stand before the judgment seat of Jesus Christ. In speaking of this, Paul wrote, "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we already have—Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials—gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay, or straw. But on the judgment day, fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value" (1 Corinthians 3:11–13).
It is not so much about bad things you did; it is more a question of what you did with your life. Did you accomplish anything? Did you impact anyone? Did you seek to glorify God with your life? Or did you spend it in the pursuit of nothingness?
Don't worry about what God has called someone else to do. Focus on what God has called you to do, because the key in that final day is not how much you did, but why you did it. God is far more interested in our faithfulness than He is in our success. It is all about faithfulness. It is all about doing what God has set before you and doing it well, with all of your might. That is what you will be judged for in that final day.
iFaith?
America has never been more spiritual, yet so immoral at the same time.
A 2009 poll found that Americans are more interested in “faith and spirituality” than they are in Christianity. One expert said, “Americans increasingly want to shape their own faith experience,” what he calls “concoct[ing] a uniquely personal brand of faith.”
“What they’ve done is they have put together a whole series of beliefs and a series of religious practices and a series of relationships and connections—all of that that makes sense to them and helps them to feel good about themselves,” he said.
iFaith
Why not? In the age of the iPod, iPhone, iMac, and now the iPad, we have “iFaith” and “iGod.”
With iFaith and iGod, you control the home screen. You can write your own programs or apps. You can customize it to your own liking.
You can leave the parts you like, such as love, forgiveness, and heaven. You can take out the parts you don’t like, such as hell, judgment, and righteousness—just highlight them, and hit the “delete” key.
Moral Relativism
We, as a nation, no longer accept certain truths that our Founding Fathers held. Instead, what we have instead is moral relativism.
What is moral relativism? It is the belief that there are no absolutes. In other words, there is no right or wrong.
Now, to some, this may sound fine in theory, but if you play it out, it is madness!
If you were to go out in the middle of the night and remove all the traffic lights, all the lane markers, and all the signs, you would have chaos.
And for many, that is what their life is: chaos. They have no moral compass to guide them. There is no set of absolutes, just their opinions.
If there is a God in moral relativism, it is a God of our own making. What you really have is people “making God into their own image.”
As it’s been said, “God made us in His own image and we returned the favor.” Instead of us becoming like God, we want God to become like us.
It’s time to get back the other way around again.
