FRIDAY, September 19th, 2008

Well, tomorrow we will be leaving Bright and Early to go to the Magic Kingdom! I am so excited!!! I have BREAKING NEWS: I have been able to talk Pastor Chip into going to Disney with us!!! Yeah!!! Don't forget we will be meeting at the church at 6:15AM tomorrow morning! Bring $50.00 and money for food! We are going to have a great time!!!

A Few Thoughts From Yesterday:
Jessica B: I am sorry about Lola!! Poor Birdie!
Mommabeals!!!! It was so good to have you join us!! I love it when adults get involved too! There are several other adults that do this each day, but they dont usually post... thanks for posting!!
Jessica M: I hope you feel better soon! I hope that you are feeling well for Disney tomorrow!!
Jonathan M: at some point you have to let go what happened "years ago" I am sure it is hard, but imagine how hard it was for Esau to forgive and forget... Jacob ruined his entire life!! Yet, Esau forgave him. Don't let that ruin yours! Besides, I am thankful that you are in my youth group!!
Michael: I am excited to hang out all day tomorrow! Just so you know.... I will not be growing a tail anytime soon!
Taylor... or Brooke... or whoever you were: I am glad you came on taylor... I could tell that was brooke, because she always types like that! :) But I am very glad that both of you came on again! Keep it up!
Amy: I am so excited about Dale and Derek!!!! They are really sharp guys! You should tell them to get on the devotional blog with us! :)
Ryan: Call me: 941-258-0719, I need to know if you are going to Magic Kingdom with us tomorrow!!! Let me know TODAY!
Rachel: We love you! Wish you came last night, but we figured that you had a good reason why you werent there.

Genesis 37

1 Now Jacob dwelt in the land where his father was a stranger, in the land of Canaan.
2 This is the history of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers. And the lad was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought a bad report of them to his father.
3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors.
4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peaceably to him.
5 Now Joseph had a dream, and he told it to his brothers; and they hated him even more.
6 So he said to them, “Please hear this dream which I have dreamed:
7 There we were, binding sheaves in the field. Then behold, my sheaf arose and also stood upright; and indeed your sheaves stood all around and bowed down to my sheaf.”
8 And his brothers said to him, “Shall you indeed reign over us? Or shall you indeed have dominion over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.
9 Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, “Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.”
10 So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, “What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?”
11 And his brothers envied him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

Joseph Sold by His Brothers
12 Then his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem.
13 And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.” So he said to him, “Here I am.”
14 Then he said to him, “Please go and see if it is well with your brothers and well with the flocks, and bring back word to me.” So he sent him out of the Valley of Hebron, and he went to Shechem.
15 Now a certain man found him, and there he was, wandering in the field. And the man asked him, saying, “What are you seeking?”
16 So he said, “I am seeking my brothers. Please tell me where they are feeding their flocks.”
17 And the man said, “They have departed from here, for I heard them say, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them in Dothan.
18 Now when they saw him afar off, even before he came near them, they conspired against him to kill him.
19 Then they said to one another, “Look, this dreamer is coming!
20 Come therefore, let us now kill him and cast him into some pit; and we shall say, ‘Some wild beast has devoured him.’ We shall see what will become of his dreams!”
21 But Reuben heard it, and he delivered him out of their hands, and said, “Let us not kill him.”
22 And Reuben said to them, “Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit which is in the wilderness, and do not lay a hand on him”—that he might deliver him out of their hands, and bring him back to his father.
23 So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him.
24 Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.
25 And they sat down to eat a meal. Then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead with their camels, bearing spices, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry them down to Egypt.
26 So Judah said to his brothers, “What profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood?

27 Come and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh.” And his brothers listened.
28 Then Midianite traders passed by; so the brothers pulled Joseph up and lifted him out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they took Joseph to Egypt.
29 Then Reuben returned to the pit, and indeed Joseph was not in the pit; and he tore his clothes.
30 And he returned to his brothers and said, “The lad is no more; and I, where shall I go?”
31 So they took Joseph’s tunic, killed a kid of the goats, and dipped the tunic in the blood.
32 Then they sent the tunic of many colors, and they brought it to their father and said, “We have found this. Do you know whether it is your son’s tunic or not?”
33 And he recognized it and said, “It is my son’s tunic. A wild beast has devoured him. Without doubt Joseph is torn to pieces.”
34 Then Jacob tore his clothes, put sackcloth on his waist, and mourned for his son many days.
35 And all his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted, and he said, “For I shall go down into the grave to my son in mourning.” Thus his father wept for him.
36 Now the Midianites had sold him in Egypt to Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh and captain of the guard.


Once again, the deceiver, Jacob is deceived. Ever heard the phrase you reap what you sow? Well, you will reap the actions that you sow, just as we see Jacob reaping his past decisions! It is sad to see how often he is deceived and how the rest of his life is determined by that decision that he made.

Well, let me start at the top of this story... we see the chosen child "Joseph". Joseph is probably the closest example that we see of Christ in the Bible. Let me explain, Joseph was betrayed by his brothers, He was unjustly put in prison, and falsely accused as we will read over the next few days.

This is one of the most powerful stories in the Bible. We see that in spite of the way that Joseph was treated, He forgave his brothers. (as we will see in a few days)

Think about how you would react if you were Joseph? What would your reaction be about your brothers? We fight with our siblings because they watch someting on TV that we dont like, or because they pick the bigger cookie... Joseph did not get cought up in silly stuff, He simply forgave and looked for the lesson that God was trying to teach him through these trials.

One lesson we can learn from this is probably the only thing that could be said that Joseph did wrong in the Bible, and that is: He seemed boastful about his position in the family... He would tell the whole family about his dreams, and He would tell on his brothers all the time...

We should not be that annoying person that is always telling everyone how "we are right and they are all wrong" instead we should all be humble!

Have a special day!! :)



9 comments:

Jessica M said...

I should stay home from school everyday cause then I can always be first to post hahaha! And yes as of now I am stillplanning on coming to Disney World!

In this famous story we see that Joseph was considered by his parents as a miracle child. His brothers hated this idea that their father favored Joseph over all of them. In fact, Jacob favored Joseph so much that he gave him a coat of many colors. Well, this just really made the brothers even more angry and prideful. Pride! That is written all over this stroy!

Then because of the brothers pride, they decided to sell there brother into slavery. How could they ever do that? Now I know my brother and I fight and sometimes say mean things to each other, but I can't ever imagine selling him! hahaha That actually sounds a little funny saying that.

Also, because of brothers pride, the didn't even seem to mind being deceitful to Jacob and lieing to him telling him that Joseph had been killed. They have gone too far!

weird high school kid said...

Oh wow thats so cheap. If it weren't for your stupid ankle getting stupidly hurt i wouldn't be stupidly second. Thats just stupid. JK! anyways today was AWESOME I finally got to go into the kitchen in cullinary today. Although I had to work with what I hate most(by taste) shrimp. It was fun though having to slice their backs open in order to pull out a rotted vein that runs along the middle of their back. It was so gross how some were just filled with hard, dried up blood.

Again anyways so on to the devotions. Wow didn't we learn this at the wilds *Gasp*. So for a brief summer recap, Joseph has some dreams representing his family bowing down to him, brothers hate him, Joeseph gets sent to bring hid bros some food, gets thrown in well, gets sold to slavery, bros tell dad Joseph is dead, dad cries.

Truly what you could get out of this today is that obey your parents like joeseph was so loving and willing to do what his father asks, that like what they said at the wilds, that he would walk for three days about just to bring his brothers some food, not only that but I guess like what PL said for Jacob what goes around comes around, you know since Jacob was a major deviever.

Oh well GTG and weed and clean if I want to go tommorow.

BYE-BEE

P-Dawg said...

Since I hope to go to Disney tomorrow, I thought it only right to post some thoughts today.

First of all, it is so fresh to see so many of you devouring the Word. It's good stuff.

Now for some comments about Genesis 37. Pastor Lee is right; Jacob is definitely finding out the hard way that the Bible is true and we do reap what we sow (Gal. 6:7). Jacob, the young deceiver of his father, is now Jacob, the old father being deceived.

I often think that later on at the end of the book of Genesis, Joseph says that his brothers meant what they did to him for evil but God meant it for good (cf. Gen. 50:20).

Joseph is one of the few people in the Bible about whom God says nothing negative. But telling your brothers a dream about how they are going to bow down to you when you know they hate your guts already is not very bright. Joseph had some maturing to do if he was ever going to rule Egypt and save many people. God used the trials in Joseph's life to mature him to become the great leader he later became.

Do you think maybe God allows trials in our lives for the same reason?

I'm out!

Godservant said...

First of all, if Jacob had not had favoritism on Joseph, this whole mess with Joseph wouldn't have happened in the first place. On the other hand, if Joseph's brothers were jealous and prideful, the mess would have never happened either. But as we see in this story, we can learn from it, just like Joseph did.

Pastor Lee, will you put a devotion on tommorrow? I guess if don't answer my question, it will be answered by not... ahhhh nevermind

Tylermon33 said...

well this starts out by jacob favoring joseph and jacob making a coat of may colors causing hatred toward joseph. then joseph has 2 dreams about people bowing down to him which again caused more hatred toward joseph. then jacob asks joseph to go check on his brothers, so he does. when he gets there his brothers strip him or his coat and throw him in a pit. then they see traders coming down the road and they decide to sell him instead of killing him. so they sell him and get 20 pieces of silver for them and then they put his coat in goats blood to make it look like an animal ate him. then they give the coat to jacob and he mourns for a few days and is very saddened. so we shouldn't be boastful or do anything to make other people mad at or annoyed at you so they don't do anything bad to you or hurt you. so we should just keep things to ourself if we know people might get mad at us and hurt us. we should just be humble about it.

Anonymous said...

hello everyone i just spent the last 3 hours with a bunch of screaming kids at a pool party... yaaa!(not really.

well in todays passage we read about jacob and how he gave josrph a coat of many colors.this made josephs brothers a wee bit upset,a wee bit talk about understatment.it made them soooooo mad that they sold their own brother.OUCH!!!!i agree with jessica m i fight with my brother but i wouldnt sell him!!!!!!! and then they go and lie to jacob saying that he is dead!!!!!

well i am going to get ready for tomorrow!!!! i am sooooo excited.i have to leave my house at 5:30. UGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!

HADOKEN!!! said...

Joseph is such a cool guy. This reminded me of the wilds. Joseph gets treated terribly by his brothers and yet he never get mad at them or hates them. For some reason this reminded me of the Jiff commercial where the mom lets one kid cut the bread and the other kid choose which side(on a side note the end of that made no sense because it should have ended with one of the kids getting really mad not the weird happy smilie end). If I was in Joseph's situation I would have gone BESERK!

Amy :) said...

Yea I'll tell them to check the website out.

OH cool Joseph

Ok I've been waiting for this passage so i could say a lot of interesting stuff about it. Ok think about Josephs life this way (Its yours) You get betrayed by your own brothers, They throw you in a pit, take your coat, and sell you into slavery!!!!!!! WOW. I probably would have killed someone by then!!! But Joseph wouldnt even think of anyhting like that. He trusted in God for everything! We need to be A LOT more like Joseph and trust God because everything that happens, happens for a specific reason and it all comes out to the glory of God and to His perfect will.

Rachel☺; said...

IM VERY VERY EXCITED!
Buuuut Pastor Lee, my back is having that weird problem like how it was when we were on our way to camp, but its not going away so fast like at your parents....so please pray that its magically gone in the morning so tomorrow will be fun (:

So i think Joseph was a pretty tolerant person; -a quality i could have more of- and someone who REALLY trusted Gods will.
This passage is only the beginning of what Joseph had to endure; all for the BEST TO COME in his future.
I know, personally, that i like to be concerned with the moment, and worry about immediate things and things upcoming in a short period of time rather than thinking out of my 'fleshy box' and into Gods bigger, better, perfectly planned future for me.
With that said, i can honestly say i have a reallyy hard time accepting the bad things that come along as positively as a should, and an even harder time trusting that they have reasons without knowing of them.
This is something i think i can only improve by learning more and growing closer to God so im glad that thats happening!

Another thing; jealousy. Its one of the worst feelings/problems to carry. Once again, honestly, im awfulllll at controlling jealous thoughts.
Im glad i have outward control though! im glad not so jealousy crazed that im willing to kill my family!
Jealousy was one of the key things that set off Josephs, what seemed like endless, struggles.
So i dont have much to say about jealousy accept we should learn to control it, and...i dont know how you would fix jealousy problems..but im sure theres some way (:

Buffalo Wild Wings Reward Activity!! Thanks for being faithful!

Stay Faithful and Join us Next Time!