In our current series ‘Joseph – The Promotable Life’, we have been learning from the story of Joseph and what made him promotable by God. Despite every detour and delay from seeing his prophetic dream being realised, he succeeded in everything he did or was put in charge of.
Some of the things that contributed to God’s favour and his success were that he never gave up, never stopped trusting and obeying God, and made a decision to flee from sin.
Whilst living in a foreign land and working for a foreign boss, he knew and experienced the tangible power of the PRESENCE of God, had a HOLY FEAR of God, and knew how to work out the power of SIN.
Joseph understood that there was something bigger at play and that every sin was actually a sin against God Himself. So, when Potiphar’s wife commanded him to sleep with her, he already decided beforehand, out of holy fear and not wanting to displease God, that he would not allow it, no matter what.
Loving God makes us want to obey Him more, but having a holy fear of Him will help and keep us from sinning. It is the ingredient that will change how we live and affect every decision we make to want to keep on pleasing God. It is a tangible fear of His wrath and judgement, and discipline that keeps us on the straight and narrow path.
Like Joseph, we too need to heed God’s wake-up call to the secret sins in our lives by:-
- Refusing to sin
- Keep on refusing
- Remove ourselves from sinful situations or temptations
- Run or flee from every sin
When it comes to ‘working’ out our salvation, we know that there is some effort on our part that is required. We learn from Philippians 2:12-13 that:
- We are to obey God, knowing that He is always watching us and is always with us.
- We are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling (holy fear)
- It is God that does the work in us to please Him
The thing with sin is that if you keep on doing it, it will desensitize you to the point of no longer convicting you to feel guilt or shame about it. Sin will take you further than you wanted to go and cost you much more than you ever wanted to pay.
We will never be able to work out God’s forgiveness, grace, or mercy, or how the worst day of humanity became the best day of eternity, but we can choose to hear God’s warning when it comes to sin.
God is able to free us from the grip of sin’s power, when we humble ourselves in His presence, surrendering every dark and hidden secret room of our hearts and letting Him in to do His work.
“RADICAL FUTURES DEMAND RADICAL OBEDIENCE!”
Our desire to want to change needs to meet our obedience and our ability to please God, and we can only do that with His Holy Spirit activated in our lives and by abiding and partnering with Him.