WordLive - Year OneSample

Prepare: Ask God to help you identify times when you know you have not put him first. Seek his forgiveness, and ask him to be first in your life today. Now is the time At last, Joseph’s time has come. His years of patient endurance and faithfulness through severely testing circumstances have culminated in this, an audience with Pharaoh himself. It’s a tense situation. Pharaoh is troubled by his dreams and no one can help him. The wise men and the magicians have all tried really, really hard! Exalting God Someone with Pharaoh’s authority would be able to execute anyone who doesn’t please him (like the baker in yesterday’s passage). So these men would have been praying to their gods and working their occult practices like never before, trying frantically to come up with something that might prevent them falling out of favour with Pharaoh. Into this tension, enter Joseph. Because of the character that God has matured in him he is not fazed or flustered, but seemingly calm and confident that God is with him now, just as he always has been. And in a foreign land, a foreign house and before foreign gods, Joseph exalts the living God with the very first words that he speaks to Pharaoh (v 16). Respond: To what extent do you avoid bringing God into your conversations? How comfortable are you in speaking about Jesus? Reflect honestly on your spoken witness, especially toward those you find intimidating. http://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2012-10-12