![]() He knew that God had spoken to him in his dreams years ago, about how the sun, moon, and stars would bow down to him. He had been obedient to the Lord in resisting the advances of Potiphar’s wife. 40:3), probably with no windows, a dark and unpleasant place, especially if you had irons on your feet and neck!įor a while, Joseph must have wondered what was going on. Psalm 105:18 gives us a glimpse of reality when it states, “They afflicted his feet with fetters, he himself was laid in irons.” The NIV translates, “They bruised his feet with shackles, his neck was put in irons.” The dungeon was most likely beneath Potiphar’s house (Gen. Joseph’s circumstances in the prison were anything but favorable, at least at first. His blessing isn’t necessarily related to favorable circumstances. We are mistaken when we think that if everything is going well, God is blessing us, but that when trials or problems hit, He has withdrawn His blessing. Was Joseph more blessed by God or more successful when he was at the top of Potiphar’s household than when he was in the dungeon? Clearly not! They were just different phases of God’s training program in which He was preparing Joseph for the job He had for him under Pharaoh. God’s blessing is not necessarily related to favorable circumstances. But, we need to be careful to think biblically about what God’s blessing means.ġ. If you have God’s blessing, you have everything, even if you’re poor and unknown if you lack God’s blessing, you ultimately will have nothing, even if you’re rich and famous now. True success is to have God’s blessing on your life. I believe that is the biblical definition of true success: *Verse 23: The chief jailer also put Joseph in charge because he saw that “the Lord was with him and whatever he did, the Lord made to prosper.”Ĭlearly, Joseph was truly successful, whether he was in Potiphar’s house or in the prison, because God’s hand was on him. *Verse 3: “ saw that the Lord was with him and how the Lord caused all that he did to prosper” *Verse 23: “The chief jailer did not supervise anything under Joseph’s charge” *Verse 6: “with there he did not concern himself with anything except the food which he ate” *Verse 22: “And the chief jailer committed to Joseph’s charge all the prisoners who were in the jail so that whatever was done there, he was responsible for it” *Verse 4: “ made him overseer over his house, and all that he owned he put in his charge” gave him favor in the sight of the chief jailer” *Verse 4: “So Joseph found favor in sight” There are some parallels between Joseph’s rise to the top spot in Potiphar’s house (39:1‑6) and his experience in the prison (39:21‑23): He ended up in the dungeon, seemingly worse off than when the chapter started. When he refused her demands, she falsely accused him. ![]() ![]() But then Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce Joseph. Life was about as good as a slave could expect at that point. But God prospers him and he rises to the top in the house of Potiphar, security chief to Pharaoh. At the beginning of the chapter, Joseph is at the bottom, a slave sold into a foreign culture. Genesis 39 is a rags to riches to rags story. So we need to bring into sharp focus the biblical answer to the question, What is true success? Christians reveal their skewed definition of success when they rush out to buy the latest story of some celebrity who has made a profession of faith, or when they parade famous athletes before the church as if they were spiritual authorities. Many pastors succumb to the prevailing definition, thinking that if you pastor a large church, or gain national recognition through writing a book or speaking at important gatherings, you are successful. Our American culture defines success primarily in financial terms, throwing in, perhaps, the ideas of power, fame, and the elusive quality, “happiness.” As Christians, we can easily see the fallacy in defining success in those terms, and yet often we are influenced by our culture more than we care to admit. If our target is wrong, we will fail even if we hit it. You’ll waste your life pursuing the wrong goals and making wrong decisions. Otherwise, you’ll be like the guy who climbed the ladder of success only to find that it was leaning against the wrong wall. But if we want true success, it’s crucial to work out a biblical definition of the term.
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