Coffee With The Lord

I don’t have much time for a post today because I’m traveling from APTS (Asia Pacific Theological Seminary) in Baguio, Philippines to Manila where tomorrow I’ll catch a plane to Tokyo and then on to Dallas and HOME!

But let me say that I am always incredibly impressed with Joseph in the Bible and his positive attitude! All kinds of really “bad” things in the natural happened to him and yet he found a way to keep a positive attitude generated by his faith in God. As I read my Bible in the van on the way to Manilla today I noticed this wonderful positive expression of faith even in the naming of his sons…

“Two sons were born to Joseph before the famine came… Joseph named the firstborn Manasseh, saying, ‘Certainly God has made me forget all my trouble and all my fatherʼs house.’ He named the second child Ephraim, saying, ‘Certainly God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.’” (Genesis 41:50-53 the NET Bible)

Did you pick up on the repeated phrase? … “Certainly God has made me… 1) forget all my trouble.” and 2) “made me fruitful in the land of my suffering.”

I gotta tell you, I want to have that kind of confidence in the God who can “make all things work together for good to those who love God and are the called according to His purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

Integrity pays off! I believe that – but I also have to face the reality that some suffer unjustly in spite of their integrity! Joseph in the Bible is the case study of both seemingly contradictory truths…

Joseph’s master in Egypt, Potiphar, “observed that the Lord was with Joseph and that the Lord made everything he was doing successful.” So Potiphar made Joseph overseer of everything in his household and all that he owned. And the Bible says, “The Lord blessed Potiphar’s household for Joseph’s sake.”

Joseph conducted himself with scrupulous integrity. But Potiphar’s wife seduced and propositioned Joseph on multiple occasions. On one occasion she grabbed him by his garment and said, “Joseph, have sex with me!” In his integrity, Joseph, left his coat and fled the house. In rejected rage Potiphar’s wife falsely accused Joseph and Potiphar “took him and threw him into prison.”

But even there, “the Lord was with Joseph and showed him kindness. He granted him favor in the sight of the prison warden.” The warden saw the kind of person Joseph was – the sterling quality of his character – and put him in charge of all the prisoners. In fact the Bible says, “the Lord was with him and whatever Joseph was doing the Lord was making successful.” (From Genesis 39 the NET Bible)

I just want to say it again… Integrity pays! But I hope that even if I should suffer unjustly in spite of my integrity; I, like Joseph, will sustain my integrity, and trust the Lord to work things out, vindicate me, and cause me to prosper regardless of my circumstances. Going to say it one more time with conviction… I believe integrity pays!

It’s time to “wake up and live right!”

That’s the message I got from my Bible reading this morning during “Coffee with the Lord!” Ever almost oversleep? You had an important appointment, you woke up and you had another 30 minutes before the alarm went off so you decided to just go ahead and “catch a wink or two” … the alarm went off but you hit the “snooze button” … just 10 more minutes … An hour later you wake with a start and alarm! How are you going to make that important appointment!

Sound familiar? Tragedy is we do it with our lives… We doze off when we know we ought to be “up and at ‘em” … Alert! Clothed with righteousness! Living right! Conducting of lives as if “today” might be the day the Lord returns!

Here’s the passage from the Bible that sounded an awful lot like a “spiritual alarm” to me this morning…

“And do this… because we know the time, that it is already the hour for us to awake from sleep, for our salvation is now nearer than when we became believers… The night has advanced toward dawn; the day is near. So then we must lay aside the works of darkness, and put on the weapons of light. Let us live decently as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in discord and jealousy. Instead, let us put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh to arouse its desires! (Romans 13:11–14 NET Bible)