Verity Christian Fellowship

The Lord was with Joseph and he prospered…..

Genesis 39:2

If you have ever had a problem with your computer will will know that it is possible to reset it to its default settings and that sometimes it is necessary to restart it in ‘safe’ mode. These default settings are the basic settings that it was provided with at the factory. This will hopefully return the system to operate in the way it was designed to.

If only that were possible for us sometimes. Just as our computers pick up ‘bad habits’ in the form of rogue programs, trojans, viruses etc. we can pick up bad responses to things. These bad responses are learned by bad experiences which give us a negative outlooks on life. As a child if something bad happens to us we learn not to trust people or if we are not give correct guidelines we don’t learn how to behave well in a situation. We have bad lessons and so we learn bad ways. Then if someone comments over our bad attitude we say ‘its not my fault, its because of….’ and find someone or something to blame.

In reality though we are responsible for our own actions and we can decide how we should respond to any given problem. A good example of this was Joseph. He had a terrible experience. Although he was loved by his father, he was despised by his brother who made fun of him. They then beat him and sold him into slavery. If anyone had an excuse to be negative and have suppressed anger at the world around him it would be Joseph.

But Joseph displayed a positive attitude which the Bible describes as ‘The Lord was with Joseph’. We cannot say if the Lord was with Joseph because he was positive or if he was positive because the Lord was with him. These are two sides of the same coin. The point is that Joseph stayed positive and followed Gods ways which were written in his heart. This is why when he was offered the opportunity to have an affair with Potiphar’s wife he refused. He could not go against God.

Even though this landed him in prison, he still refused to be negative. So again the Lord was with him and he ended up working for the warder. Do you see the common thread? Even though things seemed black Joseph refused to be beaten and become a complainer. And because he always went at whatever he did with a positive attitude, the Lord was with him.

So perhaps if we can always go at things with a positive attitude and do our best, whatever it may be, and don’t let the circumstances get us down, the Lord will be with us. Let our default setting be a positive one.

Teacher I will follow you wherever you go

Matthew 8:18

There are always times when we are feeling full of the Holy Spirit and on fire for God. At those times we generally say ‘whatever you want God, Just let me know.’ But do we really mean it?

The truth is we are usually happy to do Gods will if we think it is in our comfort zone and will not cause us too much grief. But if it looks difficult and may cause us some discomfort either financially or in commitment of time or we think it is outside our talents we are not so sure.

But by limiting ourselves in this way we can prevent God really working in our lives. The Bible is full of stories of people who thought they were not up to the job but achieved great things when they actually stepped out of their comfort zone and tried. Moses and Gideon come immediately to mind. One thought he was not a public speaker and one thought he was not a warrior.

Jesus however does not look at the outward initial enthusiasm but at the heart. That is why in Matthew he responded in what seems a discouraging way to what was probably a genuine flush of enthusiasm by the scribe. He knew that when it came down to it the man’s head would not be able to meet the commitment his heart was jumping to.

The second man, a disciple, was perhaps being more honest and his head was telling him to get things sorted first before making the commitment. However Jesus knew he would always come up with excuses not to act but these were just that – excuses. When truly judging priorities they were not ultimately important.

The truth is we can always come up with excuses for not doing things. The second man thought of these straight away, Jesus knew the first man would think of them latter.

The point though is Jesus was there then. He would not be in the same place a week later. God gives us opportunities once. Each one is unique. He may give you other chances, but never exactly the same one twice. If there is an emergency or an opportunity we need to respond whilst the window is open. Once it is closed it is gone forever.

We need to properly asses each chance to make sure we are prepared to pay the price, but never underestimate Gods provision. We sometimes need to take a risk.

Some people never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. But don’t make excuses. Don’t be one of them.

I seek you with all my heart.
Do not let me stray from your commands

Psalm 119

Every year we make new year resolutions. And generally without fail, every year we break them. To me Psalm 119 reads like a very long new years resolution.’Lord I will get closer to you.’

Unfortunately we start out with good intentions but generally they come to nothing. But that should not put us off from even trying. It is believed Psalm 119 was used for teaching and as such it uses a form known as an Acrostic to help in this. This means that each section begins with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, 22 section in all. Therefore if you knew the alphabet you could remember the Psalm and its teaching.

Perhaps we should do something like this to help us remember our resolutions for they do matter. You see if we really want to, we can make a difference in our community. We can count for something. We just have to keep trying. So this year lets make a resolution and try to keep to it.