Hebrews 5:7-9 “Who in
the days of His
flesh, when He had offered up prayers and supplications with
strong crying and
tears unto Him that was able to save Him from death, and was
heard in that He
feared; though He were a Son, yet learned He obedience by
the things which He
suffered; and being made perfect, He became the Author of
eternal salvation
unto all them that obey Him.” Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” These verses helps us to consider Jesus. I feel that I should meditate on these verses every day. It helps me to face many things in the day that would be hard otherwise. When we complain, it shows that we do not trust God enough. We need to trust God in every experience. Hebrews 12:15-17, "Lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled; lest there be any fornicator or profane person, as Esau, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. For ye know how that afterward, when he would have inherited the blessing, he was rejected: for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it carefully with tears." Esau was a man of poor
morals. He did not value the
precious place that he had as the first born son of Isaac. His
birthright meant
that he would have been in the genealogy of the Messiah. He
sold it for
immediate gratification. He was profane. I looked that word up
in the
dictionary. It had a different meaning when the Bible was
written. It meant
that he made holy things common. Esau only repented in a very
limited sense. He
had tears because of what he had lost, maybe because he was
feeling sorry for
himself, not because he truly was one with God. The spirit of
repentance means
to be one with God. True repentance is wanting to be one in
spirit with God.
David showed true repentance in Psalm 51. He acknowledged his
sin and begged to
be forgiven. I Peter 1:10-11, "The prophets...prophesied of the grace that should come unto you...the Spirit of Christ which was in them did testify beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow. They testified of the suffering of Christ." I have been thinking of
some in the Old Testament
who were led by the Spirit of God. From the beginning of time,
the only hope
any man could ever have was because of Jesus. That is why
Moses and Elias were
encouraging Jesus to go through with it on the Mount of
Transfiguration. Their
salvation depended on it, too. The brothers were doing
wrong things, thinking it
was fine because their father didn't know. That is a terrible
sin. It can never
help us to serve God. Sometimes we only repent because we are
caught. That time
is the hardest to have true repentance. We have tears because
we are caught, not
because we are convicted of our sin. Not because we want to be
one with the
Spirit of God. It is true that the father was unwise to show
favouritism to
Joseph but the fault was with the brothers. They had hatred in
their hearts.
Hatred in our hearts will spill out. Deal with it early. Then he was forgotten. It is never easy to be forgotten. We don't know how long Joseph was in prison. It might have been many years. But he was spending time with God. There is no other way he could have done what God had planned for him. Some experiences are very hard to take. Humility is not just taking the lowest place. It is possible to take pride in taking the lowest place. Proud of our humility. But true humility is taking the place God has planned for us and feeling it is my place. Shortly after, Joseph was
brought out of prison and
quickly made Lord of everything in the country. He went from
the lowest place
to the highest place. He could handle that because God was
with him. God could
trust him with that. It didn't go to his head. How do we deal
with our thoughts
whether we are in the lowest place or the highest place? Could
God trust us? Psalm 39:3, "My heart was hot within me, while I was musing (or thinking) the fire burned, then spake I with my tongue." David was thinking how frail he was. He knew his thoughts were a fire. The fire burns. We need to go to the Lord for help with our thoughts. That is how the same mind can be in us that was also in Christ Jesus. |