Genesis 41: 45-49: “And Pharaoh called Joseph’s name Zaphnathpaaneah; and he gave him to wife Asenath the daughter of Potipherah priest of On. And Joseph went out over all the land of Egypt. And Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh, and went throughout all the land of Egypt. And in the seven plenteous years the earth brought forth by handfuls. And he gathered up all the food of the seven years, which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number.”
Joseph was faithful to the Lord and chose not to defile himself when he had the opportunity. He could easily have taken credit for being able to interpret dreams but he chose to give the glory to God. We can compare Joseph with Daniel (“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. ” Dan 1: 8) They both set a good example for us to follow. We can contrast both these men with Job who also refused to defile himself (“Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die. But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.” Job 2: 9, 10). However, job went through great trials but eventually he had an intimate encounter with the Lord. If we refuse to defile ourselves then we, too, can expect to have an intimate encounter with the Lord. It may not be in the terms that we would expect or even like but God is God and our lives will be much richer for the experience. Every great man or woman of faith soon realises that there is no such thing as a great man or a great woman of God, there are only men and women of the great God. Christianity is a matter of ordinary people, doing ordinary things in an ordinary way in conjunction with Almighty God, doing Almighty things in His Almighty way.
(The view expressed in this blog are my own and should not be taken as inspired in any way.)
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