Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Self-control”
Our Bible verse for today: “She kept putting pressure on Joseph day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible.” Genesis 39:10 (NLT)
Our thought for today: “Self-control includes restraining ourselves from doing things we know we shouldn’t do.”
Joseph is a great Biblical example of a young man who knew how to control himself. He was sold into slavery in Egypt by his jealous brothers and eventually became a household servant in the home of Potiphar, who was a high government official. Joseph was so reliable and dependable, and he did such a good job, that Potiphar put him in charge of his entire household.
Joseph was also evidently handsome and well-built and unfortunately for him, Potiphar’s wife was a bit frisky and not at all honorable. She took an inappropriate liking to Joseph and decided to seduce the young man. But Joseph would have none of it and he refused her advances, at great personal risk to himself. Finally, in retaliation, she concocted false charges against Joseph and succeeded in having him thrown into prison.
There’s much more to the story but the primary point is that Joseph was a godly young man who was determined to honor the Lord with the choices he made and in the way he conducted himself.
As his story unfolds on the pages of Genesis, over the course of many years, we discover that self-control and God-honoring conduct was a dominate part of his personality. And, in the long run, that became obvious to everyone around him. This was proven true years after the incident with Potiphar’s wife when in Genesis 41:38 we read of Pharaoh, the ruler of all Egypt, declaring to the entire court, “Can we find anyone else like this man so obviously filled with the spirit of God?”
Don’t you want people to see that in you and to say that about you, that you are obviously, observably, filled with the spirit of God? That is what happened in Joseph’s life and it was because of his practice of self-control in all areas of his life.
There are so many lessons for us to learn from Joseph’s example! For one thing, we can choose to restrain ourselves even in the face of the strongest temptations. Second, godliness, maintained over an extended period of time, shape’s a person’s character. And third, even during the most difficult of trials, even trials that last for years (13 years in Joseph’s case), God is with us, God is at work behind the scenes on our behalf, and God will honor and reward our faithfulness.
Those thirteen years of trials in Joseph’s life were not wasted years. In fact those were the years during which God was shaping and preparing Joseph for true greatness. He never would have been prepared for the years that were to come, and the tasks God had waiting for him, if he had not first gone through, and been faithful in, the long years of trial and temptation.
Like Joseph each of us can exercise our self-control and be faithful to God regardless of the situations we find ourselves in. It’s a choice and it’s one each of us has to make, many times every day, but you can do it! Control yourself!
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 