Can we do תפילות prayers for:
Mike Clayton and his ministry
That also through them The האור Light, רפואה The Healing and The ואהבה Love of ישועת יהוה Yeshuath YHWH may come back to הארץ The Land of Israel?
 | | December 3 2010 |
| Joined To Hashem Newsletter |
Quick Links...
Links
|
TEACHING THE HEBRAIC PERSPECTIVE OF FAITH IN AND OBEDIENCE TO THE ONE TRUE GOD
|
| Streaming Video |
| Miketz "At the end"
Genesis 41:1-44:17
1 Kings 3:15-4:1
*Archived teaching from 2009*
|
| Happy Hanukkah |
| May your Hanukkah season be blessed with the strength of those whose footsteps we follow.
|
| Torah Commentary |
| Miketz "At the end"
Genesis 41:1-44:17
1 Kings 3:15-4:1
Judges 4-6
From the Prison to the Palace
Of the fifty-four Parashot (plural of Parashah) or sections of Torah, if I were asked to choose one section to encourage our generation it would be the one we read this week. It is a section that above all others stirs up faith to hold strong to the end.
In the past two weeks we have had the luxury of reading about the life of Joseph in a matter of minutes. Most of us already knew the end from previous times we have read these words. Joseph however did not have such luxury. He had to live out the long days of prison one by one. He had to watch the sun rise and set with each passing day, holding only to a dream, the one that had got him into this position in the first place. He had to sit day after day and contemplate the questions of whether he should have shared those dreams in the first place and how would life be different today if he had simply kept his mouth shut.
Joseph had no control over his destiny from his prison cell. He could only sit and wait out each day wondering if something he had done had changed the life he saw in the dreams, and his actions and words had sentenced him to live his life in a prison instead of a palace.
Joseph did not know that the time he was alone in the prison was just as much a part of a Divine plan as was everything else he had experienced in his life. It was, I am sure, hard for him to give thanks for the place he found himself in. He could not have known that the pattern for making a man of God usually takes him through at least one prison before he comes into his appointed position in the palace. He did not understand that before he could be promoted to the position of hero in the family, he needed to be humbled to the position of dead heretic.
The infamous day began not unlike any other. Joseph saw the first rays of sun through the small window of his cell. His first waking thoughts were those of so many other days. They were thoughts of his family, his first visit to the palace, the baker, the cupbearer and of course the flickering light of dreams from years ago. Then he heard the familiar footsteps of guards in the hallway, but this day it seemed like there were more than usual. He heard words of authority through the heavy door and the massive door started to swing open. He was being summoned to leave the familiar surroundings of his cell, not knowing if this morning would yield the same fate he had heard had befallen the baker.
On this day the life of Joseph would change. He would never again spend a long night looking at the walls of a prison cell. Promotion day had come in the life of Joseph! His gift and calling had made room for him, not in the walls of a prison, but in the walls of a palace. Life from that moment on would be what most people only dreamed of.
"What most people dreamed of?" What about his dream? He was in the palace, but what of his family? Was it possible for the dream to still become a reality? Only life would tell him the answer to that question, but now instead of waking every morning to dreams that dimmed with the passing of each day, there was renewed hope for them to come to pass. Joseph no longer spent much time thinking about the family bowing to him, but rather he saw them bowing to One whose hand had directed him through the trials he had endured. Joseph had changed in the prison. He could now see that on the day of his release from the cell a part of him had stayed there and needed to remain there. It was a part of him called pride.
Many of us can relate today to the life of Joseph. However most of us still see ourselves in the prison instead of the palace. To families we are heretics. Some of us have even been written off completely as it seemed Joseph had. Take courage this next week during this time of the pagan practices that have been perverted into so called truth. Remember the growing brightness of the lights of Hanukah. Keep hold of His word and the promises it contains. Gladly serve truth in the prison instead of serving compromise in the palace if that is your call for the time. Know that the words of Yeshua about a prophet not being recognized by his own were true not only in the time of Yeshua, but also in the time of Joseph, and in our day too. Hold strong and remember my closing words from last week, words lived out in the life of Joseph, "In the end, the heretic becomes the hero." These words are only truth though for those who would rather live truth alone in the darkness of a prison cell than live compromise in the riches of a palace.<[> Hazak, hazak, v'nit'chazek!
Be strong, be strong, and let us be strengthened!
Shabbat Shalom,
Mike
|
|
|
| |
No comments:
Post a Comment