When Joseph came to them in the morning, he saw that they were troubled. So he asked Pharaoh’s officers who were with him in custody in his master’s house, “Why are your faces downcast today?”
--Genesis 40:6-7
Don’t you just love the buoyant optimism and biblical hope of Joseph?
In today’s passage, we see him showing concern about the cupbearer and the baker who shared a prison cell with him. They must have been thinking, “Joseph, have you forgotten, we’re in prison?!”
Rather than wallowing in self-pity and whining about his circumstances, Joseph looked out for others. He asked questions. He cared for others. Why? Because his trials had taught Joseph to look beyond himself to others…and to use his thorns and his tests as a ministry to others.
After all, how can we help broken people if we’ve never been broken? How can we help dry wet eyes if we’ve never shed a tear? How can we comfort those who are grieving if we’ve never experienced great grief?
That’s why God rarely if ever uses people until they have been broken…until they’ve come to a place in their lives where their own struggles and trials have made it possible for them to minister effectively.
In 2 Corinthians 1:3-5, Paul says, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
Because you and I have experienced God’s grace and comfort in the midst of our pain and struggles, we are able to serve others. That’s the blessing of adversity!
Praise God today that He can use your hurts to help heal the hurts of others.
by Dr. Paul Chappell
“And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.”
Luke 15:17–19
Dr. Curtis Hutson once preached a sermon from the story of the Prodigal Son titled “The Insanity of Sinners” because the Bible says that the young man “came to himself,” which indicates he had not been in his right mind. Dr. Hutson said, “Every sinner is insane, because his judgments are out of order. Notice what he did. He put eternity in the background. He wasn’t thinking about the future, only about the here and now. He thought he knew better than his father. Sinners sometimes feel they know what is better for them than God does.”
Although we usually think of this parable in the context of evangelism, this truth is just as applicable to saved sinners as it is to lost sinners. When we turn away from following God to go our own way, we are on the pathway to destruction. Yet despite knowing the clear warnings of Scripture about what happens if we sin and refuse to repent and turn back to God, Christians continue to yield to temptation, and then try to cover their sin rather than confessing and forsaking it. The false concept that we can hide our sin from God dates back to the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve tried to keep God from finding out that they had eaten the forbidden fruit. It has never yet worked in all of history, but people continue to try it rather than quickly making things right with God.
Today’s Growth Principle:
If we tolerate sin in our lives, it is clear evidence that our thinking has been skewed and we are off course.
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