33. Dancing in the Arena of Testimony

“…since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the Cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the Throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” (Hebrews 12:1-3 Emphasis added.)

It is vitally important that we realize that our Master doesn’t command us from afar. He is with us; He leads the way and says, “Follow Me!” He asks nothing of us that He has not first done Himself. Moreover, He will personally be with us to empower us and walk us through whatever it may be. He has eternally and completely triumphed in every way and on every level over Satan and the powers of Darkness. So He’s not going to take us into dread and uncertainty. He’s taking us further and further into His eternal Triumph and Reward! So we don’t have to be fooled by how things look, sound or feel to our natural sensibilities, wits and senses. We can afford to rejoice in Him always, knowing by faith in His absolutely airtight faithfulness and credibility that we are following in the wake of His eternal and absolutely majestic Triumph!

This is a very important fact to remember since we’re still bound by mortal flesh here on Earth and are deployed and stationed in the demon-oppressed fallen world and its system. We still inhabit mortal, Sin-corrupted, broken bodies. We still struggle to overcome the strong urges that tend to pull us back into our original self-life radical independent thinking and behaviors. So in ourselves, we are extremely limited. Our Sin-corrupted intellects, wills, and sensory perceptions, understandings and viewpoints limit us tremendously. Natural human eyes and minds cannot be directly in touch with God and His Heavenly Reality. We can’t see or touch His infinite Credibility or His Covenant Faithfulness or His infinite Almighty Power and everlasting Love. We can’t hold His Perfection in our hands. We can only see and feel the very limited, temporary worldly things. We can see and feel their limitations and see how flighty and unreliable and fleeting everything in this world is. We see brutality, cruelty, outrageous crimes and disasters that keep taking place all around us. But we can only know God and His promises and assurances by faith in His Word and perfect nature and absolute credibility.

So the powers of Darkness attack us at that point as much as possible. They keep trying to drown out, or erase or twist, warp and blur God’s Word until it becomes meaningless and ineffective to us. And that causes His Light, the Light of the World, to grow very dim within us at times. And we can fall back into the worldly kind of spiritual blindness and deafness into which all children of Adam, including us, are originally born. And when we’re in that state, the enemy can stoke and arouse our natural inherited mistrust of God and manipulate us by keeping us focused on all the things that are wrong and dreadful, to starve our faith in God and get it to dry up and die.

We are empowered by knowing God as He really is

Spiritual blindness causes mistrust, despair and alienation from God. It forces billions to remain trapped in continuous oppression, devastation, discouragement and fear. Headless humans are defenseless because they remain enslaved by the Serpent. His demonic powers easily exploit and drive them to sabotage themselves and abuse each other. This is why disciples must be trained to remain focused on God’s changeless nature and absolutely credible Word. Knowing Him as He really is empowers us to persevere in our faith, love, trust and service to God.

Our invisible God constantly reassures and reminds us of Himself through His Word and Holy Spirit. Our Master is always with us, to empower, teach, train and guide us every step of the way. He exerts His invincible counter-pressure against the oppression of the powers of Darkness that press against us. Just as He did for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Joseph, so is He here to do for us.

The Authority of God’s Word and the Power of His Spirit are infinitely greater and more powerful, than the pathetic, delusionary weapons the enemy uses against us. Thanks to the eternal Covenant bond that was in force even before Creation took place, Almighty God is able to include every believing, repentant human into its protective covering. He is ready to be whatever we need Him to be. God’s Word and Spirit always abide with us to see us successfully through everything and anything.

But it doesn’t ‘feel’ or ‘seem’ that way to our natural, Sin-damaged senses and faculties. So, to live in that awesome assurance, we must continually abide in God’s Word just as closely and personally and intimately as He is here to abide in and cover us. That’s what Joseph did. His Covenant bond with God’s Word served like ‘the eye’ of the demonic hurricane that began to swirl all around him as soon as his brothers turned against him. The world of his day was utterly brutal and dangerous. Only the rich and powerful could thrive for a time…as long as they could manage to outwit or kill their competitors.

But God kept Joseph safely enfolded within His eternal cloak of ‘Shabbat Shalom’ (Sabbath Peace) throughout his entire ordeal. God was with him to be his eternal Blood Covenant Protector and Provider. Joseph’s heart enjoyed the Fruit of God’s perfect finished work of Creation. The Word restored God’s Original Blessing to Joseph and brought him into His Eternal Shalom. Joseph had Peace with God and from God. No circumstance could change or prevent God’s Covenant Love from enfolding Joseph. God showered him with His faithful Lovingkindness (Chesed – See Psalm 136). And this is the supernatural lifestyle that awaits each of us who obey our Master’s call to follow and abide with Him.

What went on between Joseph and God’s Word was known only to them. Joseph’s family had no idea of what was really happening, and neither did any of the Egyptians. This is very important for disciples to remember at all times. Things are not always as they seem. What God is doing cannot always be discerned. But…He is always with us, always at work, always leading us into His Eternal Triumph over His enemies.

“The secret of the LORD is for those who fear Him, and He will make them know His Covenant. My eyes are continually toward the LORD, for He will pluck my feet out of the net.” (Ps. 25:14-15)

“For a child will be born to us, a son will be given to us; and the government will rest on His shoulders; and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace. There will be no end to the increase of His government or of peace, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and righteousness from then on and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will accomplish this.” (Isaiah 9:6-7)

In this sense, it was as if God and Joseph were putting on a ‘performance’, or a ‘skit’ for the benefit of the unsuspecting people around them. If you ever see a dog suddenly become alert when he senses the presence of something you cannot hear or see, then even if you remain blind and deaf to that presence yourself…you can still become aware of its reality… not because of what is in you…but because of what is in the dog. You become aware of that presence by watching the dog that is obviously aware of, and in touch with it. What is in the dog, testifies to you and let’s you know something of what the dog knows. And this happens even though the dog is paying no attention to you nor is he trying to convince you of anything. He doesn’t have a message for you…because he is so totally focused on that presence you know nothing of, he becomes the message!

Joseph, like all other true disciples, was like that dog. God was able to reveal Himself to the Egyptians through Joseph’s obedient focus and interaction with His Word. God’s Word revealed Himself to the world around Joseph, through Joseph’s interaction with Him that was going on within his heart. So, even though the people around him were spiritually dead and blind, God enabled those decapitated pagan Egyptians to perceive the supernatural Fruit of His Word’s perfect presence within Joseph. In time, even the Egyptians began to understand that Joseph was not alone. At first all they could see was Joseph. But as they continued to watch him, they gradually became aware of his God’s Presence as well. This is what true disciples always do. Because they’re continually interacting with their God, they reflect His Presence into whatever they may be doing. In that way, they serve as His ‘reflection’, His image and likeness in this fallen world. And that is how even the fallen world begins to be aware of the Presence and the Glory and the Reality of the living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

The Arena of Testimony

Joseph’s invisible Lord led him into a vast arena…‘The Arena of Testimony.’ And there, God demonstrated His Reality and Presence and Faithfulness through Joseph’s trust and obedience. Together the two Covenant friends began to expose the emptiness and futility of the myriads of man-created false gods that the fallen system of Egypt devised and relied upon. God deliberately placed His apparently weak, helpless, abandoned and rejected ‘bottom of the barrel’ disciple in the most hopelessly powerless position possible. Then He began to prove His living Reality to the unbelieving world in the midst of Joseph’s impossibilities. They could see how helpless and hopeless Joseph was. But that was the whole idea. Joseph’s weakness served as the perfect backdrop against which the Reality of the Strength of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob could be displayed!

Our Master doesn’t put us at a total disadvantage to harm or shame us. He does it for emphasis…for dramatic effect…to demonstrate convincingly that He is real and present to His disciples and that His revelation and promises and claims are utterly true. The more He reveals Himself through our weakness, the more the false gods of this world are exposed and discredited. That sets people free from demonic delusion and entrapment and it glorifies the true living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. This is why God uses the least likely, weakest, poorest, people of this world. He does it to confound the so-called wisdom of the decapitated world. The people of this world prefer and exalt those they consider to be strong, brilliant and powerful. So God pits such people against His weak, hopeless little disciples…and for the sake of His disciples, just as He did for Joseph and David and many others, our God pulls the rug out from under the feet of the unsuspecting ‘big guns’ of this world and confounds them. This is the wisdom of the Cross. Nothing in this world can stand up to the Power of the Resurrection Life that the Holy Spirit is here to transmit into God’s image-and-likeness disciples. And our Master, Yeshua, lived this out to perfection. The living Word of God Almighty emptied Himself and obeyed His Father’s commandments. And He made perfect atonement for us and crushed the head of the Serpent, to Perfection. The Power and Authority of Almighty God came through the Resurrection side of the chasm that separates eternity from this time and space world. And thus it blows away the powers of Darkness and all their schemes. God did all of this through and in, the midst of Yeshua’s utter weakness on the Cross. And this is what Joseph and all other disciples are commissioned to identify with and embody in their own lives.

This is why God made sure that Joseph would begin with zero resources, zero backing and zero prospects for the future. He was joining and following God’s living Word in His eternal, infinite Crucifixion and Atonement. The unbelievers sitting in the grandstands knew nothing of Joseph’s invisible God or what He living Word was there, with Joseph, to do. They only saw Joseph, the young man…alone and defenseless…in the Arena below. Apparently Joseph, just like Yeshua, was utterly forsaken and hopeless…with nothing to sustain him…no assets…no rights…and no hope. There was nothing about this Israelite teenager that could impress anyone. He had nothing that they could envy. Those who were watching him no doubt thought to themselves: “I’m sure glad I’m not in his sandals!”

But Joseph’s neediness served as the dark backdrop, the contrast, against which God’s awesome Glory began to emerge. It grew ever-brighter and more dazzling until it completely overshadowed and blotted out the false, contrived glory of the pharaoh and all the false gods of that region and era. And that was a small hint, a preview, of the awesome Majesty and Glory of what God has already done in His Eternal Covenant, through His beloved Son…the living Word…the Lamb of God.

Looks can be deceiving

Because his initial starting point was so horrid, Joseph was not in a position to ‘evangelize.’ If he had said to the unbelievers, “I know something you don’t know and have something you don’t have,” who would have believed it? If he had said: “Listen you people: All of your gods are false. My God is the only true living God,” they would have laughed until they cried. How could this miserable, pathetic slave dare to even mention his God? What had His God done for him lately? Who would want what his God was allowing to happen to him?

No, Joseph could not speak for God. So he allowed His living God to speak for Himself! The Word of God spoke to Egypt…through the yielded, believing, Shalom-filled servant life of His Covenant friend, Joseph! This is the secret of true disciples. The world assumes they’re the lowest of the low. But God makes His Reality more apparent by gradually elevating His disciples. He makes the world more and more dependent on their humble service. Through them, He dramatically proves that He is present and active in their midst. So the world’s view of them will change as God proves His Reality through them and showers His Love upon them and the works of their hands. Then their true identity as God’s Blood Covenant friends emerges. God’s obvious favor gives the disciples the right to speak and give their testimony…then God vindicates their testimonies by the obvious Fruit that He continues to produce in and through their lives.

“When I came to you, brethren, I did not come with superiority of speech or of wisdom, proclaiming to you the testimony of God. For I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling, and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God!” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5 Emphasis added.)

What God did with the Fathers of our Faith in Genesis, is what He wants to do with all of us. So we too must embrace the ways of the Fathers of the Faith and abide in God’s Word and interact with our Master, just as they did. The people around us need what we have…the awesome God-given Inheritance, Status and Blessings that flow out of His Blood Covenant bond with us. The Fathers of the Faith learned this and demonstrated to their generations what it means to become as one (in Hebrew, echad) with the living God. And that’s the legacy we must carry on and share with our generations:

“Remember the Law (Torah) of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the Fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their Fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:4-6 Emphasis added.)

The above words are the final warning God gave to Israel before He sent His living Word to become flesh and appear among them as the Messiah. Malachi’s words conclude the sad account of Israel’s broken, failed Covenant response to God. And they were followed four centuries later, by the dawn of the New Covenant that God promised to make with the very same people…with Israel. He promised that His New Covenant with Israel would restore and reinstitute and eternally fulfill the utter perfection God created in first two chapters of Genesis. Moses was inspired to write down the account of that original perfection in the Torah. Now that pristine perfection was going to be perfectly restored and fulfilled in the New Covenant…by God’s living Word made flesh and His New Covenant disciples. This is the awesome honor that is ours to embody and fulfill…the glorious Last Days finish of God’s redemptive love story. It is for this awesome finale and climax to the story that God is even now beginning to assemble His disciples from this generation.

The Covenant assures us of the awesome eternal Perfection of God and the unbreakable promises that flow out of His nature. This revelation gives us the Ground we need to stand on and faithfully defend, even to the death. God’s perfect, changeless nature and airtight Covenant Faithfulness make it possible for us to abide in airtight, outrageously confident ‘disciple-level’ faith and trust. Because of all that our awesome God is, we can afford to abide in outrageous undying confidence…a confidence that perfectly reflects God’s airtight Covenant Love and Faithfulness to us. Knowing God at this depth was the secret of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and Moses. And in our New Covenant era, this is the level of knowledge and intimacy with God that He wants to restore with us and through us. This is why His Word gives the following commands:

“Therefore if (since) you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.” (Colossians 3:1-4)

This is the mentality and lifestyle that the Fathers of the Faith exercised…and the prophets…and the apostles and martyrs throughout human history! This is the significance of the life of our Messiah Himself that was prophetically revealed in the lives of the Fathers of the Faith. This is the revelation of God’s Greatness that our Messiah revealed when He joyfully embraced His Cross and resisted and overcame the powers of Darkness. The greatness and all-sufficiency of God’s Faithfulness is why our Master, as He represented us, was able to allow Himself to be reduced to total zero and enter into the Death that awaited us all, with joy, instead of dread and fear. He faced Death and entered into it with total, outrageous confidence in His Heavenly Father and what He had already done to provide for us and cover us all. It was God Himself in the flesh – testifying to His undying, all-sufficient Love for us. It was God in the flesh, showing us what it takes to completely cancel, neutralize and remove the offense and curse and power that Sin and Death gained over the human race in the beginning. The Word came to reveal this and to lead us who are born in space and time…into His Eternal Perfection! His death, which He embraced in our name, perfectly atoned and satisfied and fulfilled God’s eternal perfect Justice on our behalf. And that is why He rejoiced…even to His dying breath! Because He was Sin-less, Satan and Death had no legal hold on Him. So when He died our Death…Death could not destroy Him. Instead, He destroyed Death and set us free!

So as we join ourselves to our Master in His Death, and our Head-less existence dies with Him, He cuts us free from everything that once attached us to the Serpent as natural, Sin-contaminated children of the First Adam. The Last Adam has set us free. And now He shares His perfect, Resurrection Humanity with all those who believe and repent of their former radical independence from Him. He empowers them with His own life, love, righteousness and obedience to God…thanks to the Eternal Covenant that the God of Abraham has made available to us all.

Joseph was a prophetic revelation of what our Master Yeshua would be one day in the distant future. Like Joseph, He too would be rendered powerless. He too had to allow the world to watch him endure the bankrupt misery of all fallen flesh. But instead of obsessing over his miserable circumstances, or focusing on what the people around him did or failed to do, like Joseph, our Master remained ever-focused on God’s eternal Word and infinitely powerful Holy Spirit. We can see that God abided always in Joseph’s heart. So Joseph cooperated with God in the revelation of His Son…the coming Messiah. And God’s Word keeps bringing all of the cares, concerns and needs of mankind to His Father. He interacts with His Father as our Eternal Covenant Representative and High Priest. And God responds and interacts with us through His Eternal Word and Holy Spirit on the basis of that Perfect Eternal Covenant He has with His own living Word.

We can afford it… no matter what “it” is

That is why our incarnate Master and all of His true disciples can afford to rely on our Father and wait…and wait…and wait…while the pagan unbelievers in the grandstands arrogantly assume they understand what they are seeing. Then Father…in His perfect timing…sends His Word and Holy Spirit to respond and meet the needs of His Covenant friends. The Spirit empowers us, just as He empowered Joseph and later, Yeshua. He enables us to retain our Covenant focus and persevere and finish strong. He lives within our humanity and imparts His Holy Spirit to our regenerated spirits. Thus He is able to empower us to obey Father… from within our spirits, minds, wills, emotions and reactions. The Eternal Word of God thus becomes our invisible ‘Vine’ and we serve as His living, firmly attached, totally dependent, ‘living branches.’ And we do everything, together, as one.

Joseph was a prophetic revelation of all this. Centuries later, Yeshua would also stand and protect His Covenant Ground throughout His ordeal. Like Joseph, Yeshua in His Humanity, also never looked to Himself or any other created thing for comfort, provision, protection and well being. He looked only to His Father’s Eternal Word and Holy Spirit. His Father was everything to him…moment by moment, day by day, agony by agony. No matter what the Serpent tried to do to decapitate them…Joseph and Yeshua were empowered to resist and overcome the Father of Lies.

“Or do you think that the Scripture speaks to no purpose: ‘He jealously desires the Spirit which He has made to dwell in us’? But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, ‘God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.’ Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:5-7)

“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Ephesians 6:12-17)

It became gradually apparent that God’s Word was doing His redemptive work through Joseph. He brought forward all that Adam and Eve had lost in the Garden. He was fulfilling the promises of the Covenant into which He had included Abraham’s Family. He brought all that forward and included Joseph in it and gave him all the wisdom and authority he would need to play his part as co-administrator with God’s Word. And so Joseph fulfilled his God-given destiny as part of the Covenant Family. And before the eyes of the world, Joseph trusted in God’s supernatural wisdom and skill that no human flesh could duplicate. Despite his lowly starting point, Joseph grew in stature and significance. He grew into his God-given position and that caught the attention of the unbelieving world, even the Pharaoh, like nothing else could. That is what disciples do.

So, from this pattern we see what God has been doing throughout human history. He is making an eternal Statement to every speck and generation of His Creation about who He is, and about the way Reality works and about what the true relationship between Him and every one of His creatures really is. He is making a Statement primarily to the powers of Darkness. He does not deal with them face to face. Satan and his hordes are not worthy of such an honor. So God puts them in their place and shows them what they really are. He confounds them…not by His awesome omnipotent Authority and Power… but through the weakest, most helpless of all of His creatures…His Word’s crucified human flesh…The Lamb of God…and all of His truly crucified disciples:

“By referring to this, when you read you can understand my insight into the mystery of Christ, which in other generations was not made known to the sons of men, as it has now been revealed to His holy apostles and prophets in the Spirit; to be specific, that the Gentiles are fellow heirs and fellow members of the Body, and fellow partakers of the Promise in Christ Jesus through the Gospel, of which I was made a minister, according to the gift of God’s grace which was given to me according to the working of His power. To me, the very least of all saints, this grace was given, to preach to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ, and to bring to light what is the administration of the Mystery which for ages has been hidden in God who created all things; so that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly places. This was in accordance with the eternal purpose which He carried out in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and confident access through faith in Him. Therefore I ask you not to lose heart at my tribulations on your behalf, for they are your glory!” (Ephesians 3:4-13 Emphases added.)

When the end of this world arrives, God will fully vindicate His Name and validate His Word. Then, the era of God’s grace and mercy and patience with us will be replaced by His Judgment and Justice. That is when our Master’s eternal Validation and Enthronement will take place, just as Father has promised in Psalm 110 and various other texts. But all of this began to be revealed first, through Moses in the Torah. Torah tells us what God’s living Word was able to do for, and through, the Fathers of the Faith. Through Joseph, God’s Word was raised above every place and situation that Joseph experienced in Egypt and its surrounding regions. The Lord covered Joseph with His Righteousness and transmitted His Father’s Blessing on everything Joseph touched, to reveal the way it will be throughout the entire universe when the Day of the Lord finally arrives, and God vindicates and exalts His living Word.

“Why are the nations in an uproar and the peoples devising a vain thing? The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against His Anointed, saying, ‘Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!”

“He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them. Then He will speak to them in His anger and terrify them in His fury, saying, ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain. I will surely tell of the decree of the Lord: He said to Me, ‘You are My Son, today I have begotten You. Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, and the very ends of the earth as Your possession.

You shall break them with a rod of iron; You shall shatter them like earthenware.’”

“Now therefore, O kings, show discernment; take warning, O judges of the earth.

Worship the Lord with reverence and rejoice with trembling. Do homage to the Son that He not become angry and you perish in the way, for His wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in Him! (Psalm 2)

Our Covenant Bond and Inheritance

This precious Covenant Bond with God and the Inheritance that comes with it is what God sent His Word to restore and reinstate among those of the fallen human race who would hear and obey the Good News of His Salvation (Yeshua). He sent His living Word to do the actual Work. Then He gives us His written Word to explain the eternal Perfection of what His living Word has already done through the Eternal covenant:

“‘Thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. You shall say to them: ‘The Lord bless you, and keep you; the Lord make His face shine on you, and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance on you, and give you peace.’

“So they (the high priests) shall invoke My name on the sons of Israel, and I (Myself ) then will bless them.” (Numbers 6:22-27)

Eventually, even the pharaoh himself, realized that his own safety, survival, protection and well being could not possibly depend on his false gods or his human devices. Everything depended on Joseph and his God. Joseph knew who was doing all the work. He never ceased to give God all the credit. And so God’s Word was continually revealed to Joseph…in Joseph…and through Joseph. So ponder once more what the Lord was saying through His prophet Malachi…just before the dawn of the era of His New Covenant. This truly does bear repeating:

“But for you who fear My Name, The sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings; and you will go forth and skip about like calves from the stall. You will tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day which I am preparing,” says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law (Torah) of Moses My servant, even the statutes and ordinances which I commanded him in Horeb for ALL Israel.

“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the Fathers (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) to their children and the hearts of the children to their Fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:4-6 Emphasis added.)

God’s Word reveals Himself to the people around His disciples. The Word is doing His Father’s Business…bringing forward the Salvation and Restoration of all that Adam and Eve had lost. Through disciples, God makes a way for Abraham’s Family to survive and grow so that one day they can develop into His personal New Covenant ‘nation of priests’…the ‘Royal Priesthood’ that will usher in the Final Coming of their Messiah.

Whether God deals with one member of Abraham’s Family, or the entire Family, the template He follows is the same. It is the template each new disciple (bond slave) of the Word of God must learn to follow. It is the ‘image and likeness’ template. We are commissioned to embody our crucified and risen Master’s indwelling Presence. We must allow Him to be about our Father’s Business from within us. We serve with Him as co-administrators of our Kingdom, seeing to the proper running of our Father’s ‘House.’

“Do not let your heart be troubled; believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:1-3 Emphasis added.)

Are there any major lessons we can learn from Joseph? Could it be that our well being, as God’s Blood Covenant friends, depends solely and exclusively on the perfect, infinitely Good and Faithful, changeless nature of Almighty God…and not on our personal circumstances, viewpoints or feelings? Does God’s Word depend at all on created things? Will our well being flow out of earthly organizations, situations, conditions, perceptions, circumstances, ideas, sensations, opinions, artifacts or some creature’s good will? Or does everything depend rather on God, the one and only Source for what is real, true and good…because of His changeless Perfect nature and airtight, All-Sufficient Eternal Blood Covenant with Abraham?

Natural or Supernatural responses… the choice is ours

Imagine how things looked to Joseph when he was dragged off to be a slave in brutal, pagan Egypt. Imagine how he must have felt and what he might have naturally imagined and concluded. Imagine the treatment he received at the hands of merciless strangers and how tempted he must have been to despair and wallow in self-pity. How easy would it have been for him to take his personal well being and comfort and satisfaction into his own hands? How easy would it have been for him to lose his Covenant focus and turn his back on the family’s legacy of faith? He could have easily allowed anger, bitterness and resentment to consume him. It would have been ‘reasonable’ and ‘natural’ to hold a deep undying grudge against his brothers. He could have given in to trusting his own viewpoints, feelings and assumptions. But for some supernatural reason, he didn’t

He didn’t because the Holy Spirit empowered him to maintain a military-level focus on God’s living Word. Joseph remembered who God is, so he didn’t lose sight of what he was in himself, apart from God. He remained true to His God-given Covenant identity before God and gave a wonderful testimony to that effect, before the Egyptians. Joseph was a disciple worthy of the name. (See our Genesis meditation No. 3. “The Arena of Testimony” and ponder once again what you see in the video clip that is contained in that segment in light of what we’re saying here.)

Joseph and all other true disciples are different from the rest of mankind. Their invisible God with whom they dance in the Arena, is more real to them than anything this fallen Titanic of a world could ever offer. Through them, God continues to reveal His Word and His disciples elevate God’s Word on high. In the wilderness, they willingly obey and work together to become God’s ‘human highway.’ They will occupy their assigned places and usher in the Master’s final and defining Coronation and Enthronement on the New Earth that has been promised to us.

“O Lord, how my adversaries have increased! Many are rising up against me. Many are saying of my soul, ‘there is no deliverance for him in God.’ Selah. But You, O Lord, are a Shield about me, my Glory, and the One who lifts my head. I was crying to the Lord with my voice, and He answered me from His holy mountain. Selah. I lay down and slept; I awoke, for the Lord sustains me. I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people who have set themselves against me round about. Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God! For You have smitten all my enemies on the cheek; You have shattered the teeth of the wicked. Salvation belongs to the Lord; Your Blessing be upon Your people! Selah.” (Psalm 3)

“Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed at his presence. Then Joseph said to his brothers, ‘Please come closer to me.’ And they came closer. And he said, ‘I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. Now do not be grieved or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life.’” (Genesis 45:3-5 Emphasis added.)

“When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, ‘Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last,and the Living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.’” (Revelation 1:17-18 Emphasis added.)

Amen!