Let me show you the Joseph Companya body of last-day believers wholly given to the Lord. They commune with God daily and are led by the Spirit in every detail of their lives. At this moment they are coming out of great trials to enter a place of revelation, wisdom and fruitfulness. God is working in them, giving them his truth and knowledge, and very soon he is going to call upon them as he did Joseph!
For the most part, the church today is experiencing widespread spiritual famine: shallow sermons, dead hearers, "lively" worship that is not backed up by righteous living.
God has always worked far in advance of every spiritual famine in his church. In every generation he has moved ahead to prepare a way out for his people!
The seventy-five members of Jacob's clan would have died in the great worldwide famine (and the promise of Israel would have been destroyed) had God not been working ahead of it all. In fact, some twenty years before the famine hit, God was already setting in motion a plan to save his people from destruction.
God sent Joseph ahead to Egypt! For twenty years God worked on this manisolating him, trying him, preparing him for a place of authoritybecause Joseph was to become the life-saver of God's chosen. He kept Joseph from the limelight in order that he might be ready for a coming day of chaos and death!
Beloved, just as surely as God isolated Joseph, he has a Joseph Company today that is hidden from all eyes. These are in the furnace of affliction, prisons of testing, battlegrounds of trials and temptations. They are dying to this world, wanting nothing of its fame, honor, money or pleasure. And they are growing hungry to become more intimate with Christ, to know his heart and his voice.
You may not understand all the mysterious testings, trials and troubles in your life. But if your heart is fully set on following Christ, you can rest assured God has purpose in it all: He wants to bring you into his Joseph Company!
JOSEPH and GODS FAVOR
Does our heavenly Father favor certain of his children? Does the Bible say God is no respecter of persons? When it comes to salvation and his wonderful promises, God treats all alike but he also puts his special favor on those who respond wholeheartedly to his calling and yield their lives to him entirely!
Job said: "Thou hast granted me life and favour" (Job 10:12). David said: "For thou, Lord, wilt bless the righteous; with favour wilt thou compass him as with a shield" (Psalm 5:12).
Our heavenly Father puts a special garment on those who completely give him their heart: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isaiah 61:10).
Joseph responded to the Spirit's call, surrendering all, and as a favor from his father he received a robe that set him apart. But that favor of his father was costly! It cost Joseph relationships and brought him rejection, misunderstanding and mockery: "All his brethren . . . hated him" (Genesis 37:4).
Why did Joseph's brothers turn on him? The key is in verse 11: "His brethren envied him." When they saw the robe Joseph wore, they knew it spoke of favor, righteousness. And they hated it, because it reminded them of the Spirit's call they had rejected! Joseph was a reproach to their halfhearted lifestyle!
You see, Joseph's brothers sat around indulging in petty gossip and self-centered talk. Their hearts were occupied with lands, possessions, the future, but Joseph's was elsewhere. He spoke of the things of God, of supernatural dealings. God had given him dreams, which in that day was synonymous with hearing the voice of God.
Lukewarm believers around you will want to talk about their cars, houses and jobs, but you'd rather talk about eternal things, about what God is saying to you. Soon you'll become a reproach to their halfheartedness. They will envy you because you represent the call of the Holy Ghost they turned down!
Yes, Joseph was of a different cloth and that difference made him hated and envied among his brothers. And, beloved, the same will happen to you if you are sold out to Jesus!
_________________ SI Moderator - Greg Gordon
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