LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP – PART THREE
“DON’T LET YOUR DREAMS DIE”
GENESIS 37:2-11
©Larry L. Thompson (2003
INTRODUCTION
Illustration of Frederick Nolan. Nolan was fleeing from his enemies during a time of persecution in North Africa. One night he fell exhausted, into a wayside cave, fully expecting his enemies to find him very soon. Resigned to face his death with dignity he sat down in a cave that was less than six feet in depth. As he sat against the back of the cave he saw a spider weaving a web. Within minutes the little arachnid had woven a beautiful lacework across the entire mouth of the cave. The pursuers arrived within the hour and stopped at the opening of the cave and wondered if Nolan might be hiding inside. However, the captain, upon seeing the unbroken spider’s web, informed the soldiers that it would be impossible for him to have entered without having destroyed it. So they left and Frederick Nolan escaped. Later, Nolan wrote these words in his journal:
"WHERE GOD IS, A SPIDER’S WEB IS LIKE A WALL,
WHERE GOD IS NOT, THE WALL IS BUT A SPIDER’S WEB." (Frederick Nolan)
In my research of this message I discovered scores of ways in which Joseph was a type (or parallel) of Jesus Christ. Yet, as much as I believe Joseph was a picture of the Christ to be revealed, I now know he is also the portrait of a spiritual leader that God is looking for in these last-days! Leaders God is preparing to help people survive a spiritual famine and live in victory feasting on His truth and His word! A spiritual leader that refuses to let his or her God directed dreams die!
CHARACTERISTICS OF SPIRITUAL LEADERS WHO REFUSE TO LET THEIR DREAMS DIE
• Wholly committed to the Lord
• Daily commitment to intimate fellowship with Christ
• Seeks the Spirit’s leadership in every detail of their lives
• Experiences great difficulties, tremendous trials, persecution, and testing
• Displays great faith to persevere in difficulty
• Complete trust in God’s protection and provision
• Continually maturing in His word
• Will be used mightily for the Glory of God
The time is coming when God will bring their dreams to reality and HE will call upon these equipped spiritual leaders just as He did in the life of Joseph!
As I told you in the first message in this series, America is suffering from a leadership crisis. This leadership vacuum has created a spiritual famine in our land and in our churches. This is made obvious by the mounting evidence that His church is growing increasingly worldly, sensual, wicked, powerless, faithless and cold. I have preached at two national pastor’s conferences in the past couple of years and I hear the same complaint over and over again. “People don’t want to hear the word of God; they want to be massaged with a 30 minute message that gives them this false feel good emotion that covers the pain and rebellion in their life.” The tragedy is that many ministries have surrendered to providing what the “People want” instead of what “God expects.” SPIRITUAL FAMINE IS THE END RESULT OF SUCH A DECISION.
Understand this truth…We do still have powerful, uncompromising "God-honoring" churches in America who are faithfully proclaiming His truth and calling His people to the cross and to a holy life. The ministers in these churches are spiritual leaders, being prepared by the Spirit of God, filled with His fire, committed to preaching righteousness and God is starting to move mightily among that remnant. The DREAM THAT APPEARED DEAD WAS ONLY DORMANT and now His Spirit is breathing LIFE into His work.
Tragically however, we can not escape the fact that most of our houses of worship today are experiencing widespread spiritual famine: shallow sermons preached to spiritually dull or dead ears, camouflaged at times by a talented "lively" worship where the emphasis is on the talent of the individual with little or no regard for personal purity or holiness. The spiritual famine has been in the making for the past 25-30 years as gradually we have witnessed the blindness which Christ speaks about in the Laodicean church fall like a cloud over the eyes of multitudes, people once who were on fire for God. Many true ministers of God are becoming discouraged and defeated by the constant battles as they hear the demands of ungodly leaders say, “Either you conform to what we believe our church needs or be fired.” So these men of God are heartbroken, defeated, discouraged and yet if they are true spiritual leaders with a God given dream they are faithfully waiting in this spiritual famine for God’s promise of fullness to be fulfilled.
WHAT IS GOD’S SOLUTION TO SUCH THE SPIRITUAL CRISIS & FAMINE IN OUR WORLD?
From our study today we are reminded that God has always been at work far in advance of every spiritual famine His people have faced. In every generation He has prepared spiritual leaders to answer His call and in His time lead His people from spiritual famine to feast.
This vital truth is seen in today’s Lesson In Leadership: The 75 members of Jacob’s clan would have died in the great worldwide famine and with their death the promise of Israel would have been destroyed had not God been preparing and equipping His leader in advance of this crisis. In fact, some twenty years before the famine hit, God was already equipping a leader and setting in motion a plan to save His people from the famine and certain destruction.
GOD sent Joseph ahead to Egypt! For twenty years God worked in this young man’s heart to prepare this leader. God was isolating him, trying him, preparing him for leadership and authority. Because Joseph was to become God’s instrument to save His people in the famine, God knew He must keep Joseph from the spotlight; this young man had to be equipped, discipled, prepared, and ready for a coming day of disaster, disappointment, death, but also a God honoring deliverance through a DREAM THAT REFUSED TO DIE!
Listen carefully, just as surely as God isolated Joseph, preparing him for his leadership role, God has also calling some of you today in order that He may set you apart, just like Joseph, and hide you from the limelight. He is preparing you today in the furnace of affliction, the prisons of personal testing, and the battlegrounds of so many different trials and temptation. These future leaders are REFUSING to allow the DREAM that God gave them die at the altar of so much pain and pressure. These men and women are being prepared by His Spirit, not seeking the fame of this world, the honor, money, position or pleasure that is associated with what our world offers. INSTEAD, THESE FUTURE LEADERS HAVE A GROWING PASSION TO BECOME MORE INTIMATE WITH CHRIST - TO KNOW HIS WORD, TO KNOW HIS HEART AND TO HEAR HIS VOICE AND TO BE USED BY HIM FOR HIS GLORY!
You may very well be one of those leaders being prepared by the Spirit of God! If you are then God has given you a dream! God’s dream is what He can do through you! YOU MUST NOT ALLOW THIS DREAM TO DIE…you must hear His Spirit speak to your heart today through the WORD HE HAS DELIVERED TO ME! You may not understand all the difficult testing, you many not comprehend the personal trials and troubles you have faced in your life. But if your heart is fully set on following Christ, desiring to be the leader you KNOW God is preparing you to become, then you MUST rest assured God has purpose in everything: He is going to use you in His time to show others HIS provision and deliverance from the spiritual famine that our world experiences today.
THERE ARE THREE LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLES ESSENTIAL IN KEEPING THE DREAM ALIVE. I urge you to pay very close attention to the Spirit’s instruction as the scripture reveals how to keep the DREAM ALIVE while God is molding His leader, a tried and tested servant. Listen carefully, today’s message may be exactly what God wants to do, or is doing in your life. FIRST, DREAMS DON’T DIE WHEN…
I. LEADERS KNOW THERE IS A PRICE FOR PURITY
God’s Spirit is always calling people to Himself. He is calling out today, challenging you to leadership, to a life of holiness, the purity of heart and a separated life. Tragically, few respond to God’s call, to be used by Him! Yet in every generation God has a small remnant who does answer this call to leadership. They separate themselves, understanding the price they must pay to be spiritually prepared and give their lives wholly to the Lord.
Joseph responded to God’s call through a Dream he received at a very early age. One truth that almost missed was this: Joseph had ten older brothers who received the same call to surrender, to walk righteously and separate themselves. But they considered the price they would pay to give up the lifestyle of the world and they rejected God’s dream. The result was they ignored His call, their DREAM, and their walk with God was compromised, and they suffered in a great famine.
The Missed Opportunity to Surrender to God’s Call
Jacobs sons failed to pay the price that leads to purity…but they rejected this call.
1. SHECHEM: (Genesis 33:18-20)
“After Jacob came from Paddan Aram, he arrived safely at the city of Shechem in Canaan and camped within sight of the city. [19] For a hundred pieces of silver, he bought from the sons of Hamor, the father of Shechem, the plot of ground where he pitched his tent. [20] There he set up an altar and called it El Elohe Israel.”
The first call was when they arrived in Shechem, (Gen. 33:18-20) where Jacob built an altar to ‘THE GOD OF ISRAEL.’ Jacob built this altar in the presence of his sons. The God of this altar would call his sons to follow the example of their father and become true worshipers. The altar calls us to submission…they were called to kneel before the Lord and follow Him wholeheartedly.
While the sons may have visited the altar they never allowed the Spirit of the altar to visit them. Joseph’s brothers instead turned to revenge and bloodshed. When a Shechemite raped their sister Dinah, they devised a devious plan, rushed into the city, burning it down and killing every man, taking all the wealth, the women and children for their own. (Genesis 34) Obviously, these ten brothers hadn’t committed to trust and serve God. Acting in the flesh their violence made Jacob “a stench among the Canaanites!”
2. BETHEL: (Genesis 35:2-3)
“So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, "Get rid of the foreign gods you have with you, and purify yourselves and change your clothes. [3] Then come, let us go up to Bethel, where I will build an altar to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and who has been with me wherever I have gone.”
God in His mercy called out to them once more, this time at Bethel. Jacob knew his sons lives were filled with idolatry, rejecting God’s call to purity and righteousness. He warned them to pay the price for purity by putting away all the false gods in their lives.
Listen very carefully to one of the clearest calls in all of God’s Word! The phrase "change your clothes" =Hebrew meaning “a moral and spiritual purification of the soul that is reflected outwardly.” Sadly, outwardly was the only way Jacob’s sons surrendered to God: Examine Genesis 35:4:
“So they gave Jacob all the foreign gods they had and the rings in their ears, and Jacob buried them under the oak at Shechem.”
But their repentance was only on the surface, never experiencing a true heart-change. They went right back to their rebellion with lives becoming full of hate, envy and strife!
At time point in the message is where we see something different about Joseph: JOSEPH’S REPENTANCE CAME FROM THE HEART. He had responded to the Spirit’s call, and from the age of seventeen, he was wholly set on following the Lord. In the midst of a wicked, evil environment, Joseph was willing to pay the price for purity and sought to maintain clean hands and a pure heart. Look at this scripture…
Genesis 37:2:
“This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.”
Jacob had other sons who were born to his maid and concubine. These sons cared for the family flocks, and Joseph was sent out to the fields to work among them, but he was soon grieved because his brothers spoke and lived like pagans! His pure heart was obviously crushed by the sin, rebellion and wickedness in his own family.
Joseph unburdened his heart to his father: "You wouldn’t believe the way they live, Father. They speak against your God and mine. They’re grieving Him and this is not what you taught us by your example!"
THE MARK OF THE TRUE LEADERS OF GOD: Their hearts are BROKEN OVER SIN! They have turned from the idols of this world and are seeking to be more in love with Jesus. Their hearts are on fire with His holiness! They see the sin in our nation, but they are grieved the most by the sin in God’s own family, the sin in the church. They cry out from pure hearts, "Oh, Father, look at what is happening among Your children!"
IF YOU ARE MAN OR WOMAN OF GOD WHOM GOD HAS CALLED AS A LEADER THEN YOU CAN’T OVERLOOK SIN. Something must rise up in you that says, “Oh God, I can’t stand what they’re doing to Your name!” You begin to pray and intercede, not against people, but against the sin and strongholds which imprisons the hearts of God’s children in His church. Secondly, DREAMS DON’T DIE WHEN…
II. LEADERS KNOW THEY ARE MARKED BY MATURITY (Genesis 37:3-4)
“Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. [4] When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.”
Does our heavenly Father favor certain of His children? Doesn’t the Bible say “God is no respecter of persons?”
When it comes to eternal salvation and His wonderful covenant promises, make no mistake about this…IT IS GOD’S WILL THAT EVERYONE BE SAVED. God treats us all alike in this regard and the gift of eternal life is offered to every person. But God also responds to all who wholeheartedly answer His call to be spiritual leaders. He puts His special favor on those who yield their lives to Him entirely! The MATURITY OF THESE LEADERS ARE MARKED BY GOD WITH HIS SPECIAL FAVOR. Listen to these examples…
Job said in Job 10:12:
“You gave me life and showed me kindness, and in your providence watched over my spirit.”
David said in Psalm 5:12
“For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous; you surround them with your favor as with a shield.”
Said of Samuel in I Samuel 2:26
“And the boy Samuel continued to grow in stature and in favor with the Lord and with men.”
The fact is, our heavenly Father MARKS THOSE who seek SPIRITUAL MATURITY AND FOLLOW after Him, giving Him their whole heart:
Isaiah 61:10
“I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”
Joseph responded to the Spirit’s call, the dream to be a spiritual leader and he received favor from his father. HE WAS MARKED AS A RESULT OF HIS MATURITY AND FAVOR WITH HIS FATHER. He was given a robe that set him apart. KEY POINT TO REMEMBER: BEING MARKED FOR SPIRITUAL MATURITY COSTLY! It cost Joseph every relationship. It brought him rejection, misunderstanding, mockery: “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.” (Genesis 37:4)
Why did Joseph’s brothers hate him? The answer is found in Genesis 37:11
“His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.”
When they saw that Joseph was marked with the robe that signified his own maturity and his father’s love, they knew it spoke of favor and righteousness, and they hated him because The robe of favor reminded them of the Spirit’s call they had rejected! Joseph was marked by his maturity in the Lord and his life was conviction to their halfhearted life-style!
Joseph’s brothers sat around participating in petty gossip and self-centered talk. Their hearts were occupied with land, possessions, women, homes, treasures, everything temporal in their future. But Joseph’s heart was elsewhere. He spoke of a Dream God had given to him, shared the things of God, of the Lord’s supernatural work among his family. THE DREAMS GOD HAD GIVEN TO JOSEPH, WAS IN THIS DAY SYNONYMOUS WITH HEARING THE VOICE OF GOD OR READING THE WORD OF GOD UNDER THE HOLY SPIRIT’S LEADERSHIP.
Yes, Joseph was a marked man, a man cut from a different cloth, and that difference made him hated and envied among his jealous brothers. Listen VERY carefully…the same response is waiting for all leaders who respond to God’s call to wholly follow Jesus Christ.
Lukewarm believers around you will want to talk about their cars, their hobbies, their houses, their jobs - but you have answered God’s call, He has given you a dream of what you can become and you submitted your life to Him. You are MARKED BY MATURITY and you find that you would rather talk about what God is doing in your life, spiritual issues, and the eternal things of God. If this is where you are today then sooner rather than later you will be “Marked by the Righteousness of Christ” as a man or woman committed to spiritual “Maturity.” Your life will quickly become a reproach, a source of conviction to their cold hearts of others. They’ll envy you and be jealous of you and even ridicule and slander you…all because you represent the DREAM IN THEIR OWN LIFE…THE CALL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THEY HAVE REJECTED!
Indeed, those of you who have answered God’s call to spiritual commitment and to be a true spiritual leader know all about rejection. You know the pain of being labeled a fanatic, a spiritual nut, an "unbalanced" believer. Some will mock those who are Marked by Spiritual Maturity, calling their separation and devotion to Jesus "nothing but spiritual pride." While others will say, “They don’t really understand the Word of they wouldn’t act in such a manner.” They tell anyone who will listen in the FAMILY OF GOD, "Watch out for that person. They have no idea what the spiritual life is all about. They are running people away from God. God doesn’t expect that demonstration of commitment!"
Remember, the pain is greatest when the attack comes from within your own family. If you are “Marked by Spiritual Maturity” then mark this down…you will be subject to attack. FINALLY, DREAMS DON’T DIE WHEN…
III. LEADERS KNOW THE PATH TO THE PALACE IS THROUGH THE PRISON (Gen. 39:19-23)
GENESIS 39:19-23
“When his master heard the story his wife told him, saying, "This is how your slave treated me," he burned with anger. [20] Joseph’s master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king’s prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in the prison, [21] the Lord was with him; he showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. [22] So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there. [23] The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph’s care, because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did.”
We now come to the final principle in today’s lesson in leadership. The last and yet the most difficult! It is the very reason so many God-given dreams die! God’s leader fails to learn the most valuable of lessons…THE PATH TO THE PALACE RUNS THROUGH THE PRISON!
Consider what Joseph endured:
• Betrayed & deserted by those he loved
• At seventeen, was stripped and cast into a pit to starve to death
• His brothers rejected his pleas for mercy
• Sold into slavery
• Exposed to tremendous sexual temptation
• His loyalty and purity was repaid with a prison sentence
• He was forgotten by those he had helped in the past to succeed
Yet, it wasn’t being forced into slavery or cast into prison that came close to causing his DREAM DIE. No, I believe the greatest prison was not the cold walls and bars that he faced daily but it was the torture in the prison of his confused mind as Joseph tried to reconcile in his spirit the truth of what he KNEW HE HEARD & SAW in the Dream from God and the lack of any visible evidence to support the WORD HE RECEIVED.
By God’s word a DREAM was revealed to Joseph that he would be given great authority, and that he would use it for God’s glory. His entire family would bow before him! He would be a great deliverer of many people. Joseph believed God. His heart was so set on God that he believed God would see the dream was a reality…EVEN IF IT MEANT THE PATH TO THE PALACE MUST TAKE HIM THROUGH THE PRISON.
Remember, Joseph was human, just like you and me and when you consider all the circumstances in his life you understand he was bound to waver, to question God’s word and the dream! EVERYTHING in his life was just the opposite of what God had put in his heart. HE WAS THE SERVANT AND HE WAS THE ONE WHO HAD TO BOW!
How could he hold to the DREAM? He must have thought, "THIS DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. HOW COULD GOD BE ’ORDERING MY STEPS’ TO THE PALACE AND YET I FIND MYSELF IN PRISON, FORGOTTEN BY ALL? THIS WAS NOT PART OF THE DREAM; HE SAID I WAS GOING TO BE BLESSED. HE DIDN’T TELL ME THIS WAS GOING TO HAPPEN!"
For ten years of faithfulness Joseph served in Potiphar’s house. He must have reasoned often, “Potiphar is so close to Pharaoh surely this is how God will allow my dream to become a reality.” However, God continued to equip this leader and he would learn that it is not man that would be the power to deliver the dream…but God, the author.
His victory over sexual temptation with Potiphar’s wife only landed him in prison. He must have questioned God…
"Did I hear correctly? Was it my pride inventing these dreams? Perhaps my brothers were right…The Dream wasn’t from God, it was nothing but my own sinful imagination. Perhaps I have placed too much trust in this word? Maybe this is all happening to discipline me because of my pride.”
Friend, there have been times in my life when God has shown me through His word what He wanted for me, and desired to do through me related to the ministry, my family, my life, even our church…Yet every circumstance in my life was the exact opposite of the word I believed God had given to me. I would rationalize, "God, this can’t be You speaking; this is NOT your will, it has to be my flesh that desired this Dream for my life.”
I look back on those times now that I am maturing in God’s word and I see this lesson in leadership as I have never seen it before…
While I was thinking this “Dream will Die in this Prison…” I failed to realize: IN THE PAIN OF YOUR PRISON, FAITH IS BEING TRIED BY THE WORD GOD HAS GIVEN. I was forced to learn this lesson in leadership…The Path to the Palace runs through the Prison. The Prison was for me! It was God’s equipping tool to prepare me for the Days of Promise, the Fulfillment of His Dream.
Please allow me to show you in God’s word how this truth was revealed to my heart:
Psalm 105:17-19
“And he sent a man before them--Joseph, sold as a slave. [18] They bruised his feet with shackles; his neck was put in irons, [19] till what he foretold came to pass, till the word of the Lord proved him true.”
I know some of you who this very day are being tried by God’s Word. You believe what the Bible says yet everything around you seems to grow worse every day. I am here to remind you today that in your prison you are being tried by the WORD OF GOD, tested with HIS FIRE and you must hold tight to what God has given to you. YOU MUST NOT ALLOW THE DREAM TO DIE!
In the Midst of Every Trial and Difficult Prison You Face, remember, God will prosper His faithful People. It is in the little things God does that gives us the strength and knowledge to trust His continued presence and provision. It is that tiny evidence of God’s presence that is there to remind you to HOLD FAST TO HIS WORD…DON’T LET THE DREAM DIE!
In prison, God continued to prosper Joseph. It wasn’t with money or possessions; or even with position. No, all along God was prospering Joseph’s spirit, speaking to his heart, continuing to give him dreams and interpretations!
This is what kept Joseph going on with God. He had faith that, in spite of all his hardships and situations beyond his control, God was with him. Joseph was never without the manifest presence of the Lord and His constant, abiding presence produced a peace within him. I believe God must have longed to show Joseph the end of the story, at times when he heard Joseph crying out in the cell with his heart broken in loneliness and despair, surely the Father wanted to whisper to him, "Don’t worry, Joseph. This is how it’s going to end...." But God did not whisper because Joseph was still in the school of leadership!
Psalm 105:22: “To instruct his princes as he pleased and teach his elders wisdom.”
Joseph didn’t know that one day he was going to "instruct Pharaoh’s sons and teach the leadership of Egypt wisdom" (Psalm 105:22) Yet how could he teach God’s wisdom to Egypt’s leaders unless he first had learned it himself? God’s children learn such lessons only by faith! We mature in our faith and trust in God’s word through trials, tribulations, hardships and times of testing. In each prison we face, we have learned…we don’t simply pray it down…we are also called live it out by faith!
PERSONAL TESTIMONY:
About six years ago God gave me this word regarding the ministry here at FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH. I knew when I read the word that it was a word for me and for our fellowship in light of what God would do through His people. Here is the word God gave me.
Haggai 2:3-9 (NIV)
“Who of you is left who saw this house in its former glory? How does it look to you now? Does it not seem to you like nothing? [4] But now be strong, O Zerubbabel,’ declares the Lord. ’Be strong, O Joshua son of Jehozadak, the high priest. Be strong, all you people of the land,’ declares the Lord, ’and work. For I am with you,’ declares the Lord Almighty. [5] ’This is what I covenanted with you when you came out of Egypt. And my Spirit remains among you. Do not fear.’ [6] "This is what the Lord Almighty says: ’In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. [7] I will shake all nations, and the desired of all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,’ says the Lord Almighty. [8] ’The silver is mine and the gold is mine,’ declares the Lord Almighty. [9] ’The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ’And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.”
God gave me this word, I shared this word, I wrote this word down but in the midst of getting this direction from the Lord, everything around me seemed to operating in exactly the opposite direction. It seemed that every circumstance placed us in another prison rather than positioning us to live in the joy of this DREAM. I would love to tell you that I followed the Joseph principle of leadership and merely held on to God’s word as it was being tried in my life but unfortunately I found myself questioning more than praising and living in fear far more than faith. However, it was through those times of bondage, pain, turmoil and fear that God held me in my own prison long enough to understand the lesson in spiritual leadership that He insisted I receive. I tell you today that I do understand this principle. I can’t promise that I will always pass every test when I am “tried by the Word” but I see now what I could not see in those years.
GOD IS GOING TO ALLOW THAT DREAM TO BE REALIZED. HE IS GOING TO CONTINUE CALLLING ALL NATIONS TO THIS PLACE AND IN THIS PLACE IS GRANTING HIS GLORIOUS PEACE TO HIS PEOPLE, AND I CAN STAND TODAY AND TELL YOU BY HIS GRACE THAT WE WILL NOT “LET THE DREAM DIE.” GOD IS GOING TO USE THIS CHURCH TO BE A PLACE OF PLENTY IN THE MIDST OF SPIRITUAL FAMINE. WE MUST GET READY…WE MUST BE PREPARED.
You may not comprehend all the mysterious ways God has led you. In fact, everything around you may seem the very opposite of the Dream God has given you. But this time in your life has a purpose, even the pain of your personal prisons, Christ is your resource. And God is keeping you in the school for spiritual leaders and preparing you for the day when He will call by name and you hear, “Well done! You did not allow the Dream to Die. The prison doors are open and by the power of My Spirit it is time for My Dream in Your Life to Become a Reality.”
REMEMBER, THE DAY CAME WHEN IT ALL MADE SENSE TO JOSEPH! GOD HONORED EVERYTHING HE SHARED IN THE DREAM! EVERY WORD AND PROMISE WAS FULFILLED TO THE LETTER!
CONCLUSION:
I believe it happened during Joseph’s darkest hour. When he was lonely, downcast, about to give up his dreams, even questioning his relationship to God. Suddenly, the call came from one of the king’s guards: "Joseph! Stand and get cleaned up - Pharaoh is calling for you!" In that moment, the Spirit of God must have come upon Joseph mightily. I believe his heart jumped an excitement grew within him: for the first time he was about to understand the purpose behind all the pain, the preparation during his days in prison.
As Joseph preparing to see Pharaoh he must have thought, "The Dream is coming to reality, this is what God has promised me. Now I know I heard from Him! Satan was not in control and my life has not been wasted. God has been directing everything according to His plan and in His time!" Within an hour, Joseph had gone from PRISON TO THE PALACE, from being a rejected, forsaken, unknown prisoner to the second most powerful man in Egypt. As he rode a royal chariot sold as a slave for life, to people bowing before him! So he realized God’s dream in his life and the best was yet to come!
A new joy came into his heart as everything was coming together! He said, "Now I can see it! A famine is coming…God wants to save my father and my brothers. He has sent me ahead of them. This was His entire plan all along!" That day came when Joseph stood before his brothers and was able to say in Genesis 50:20:
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
Dear saint, if you are holding fast to a word God has given you, you are waiting on His Dream for your life to come to fruition then understand your present fiery trials have a purpose. At some point it will all make sense. You’ll see that He has never forsaken you. He had to take you this way, for He has been training you, preparing you, teaching you to trust Him for everything. He has planned a time for you to use you for his glory…so finish your lesson in spiritual leadership. Don’t Allow His Dream to Die. The hour will come when your battle will end and your victory will be made real. You’ll come out of the fire as “His vessel of honor.”
