doing the right thing

Genesis 39: 7-9

7 After some time his master's wife looked longingly at Joseph and said, "Sleep with me."
8 But he refused and said to his master's wife, "Look, my master does not concern himself with anything in his house, and he has put all that he owns under my authority. 9 No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?"


Doing the right thing. ......Everyone says it, but I will be the first to admit, it can be the hardest thing to do sometimes. Doing the right thing means not doing something as often as it means doing something. Typically if you have to take action it is going to be hard, and if doing the right thing calls for not doing something, you can almost bet that you are going to WANT to do it on some level. This is the situation we find Joseph in, doing the right thing means not taking action. Let’s be honest here, we are not talking about a one-time encounter. It gets to the point that every time she sees Joseph, the Egyptian wife propositions him. We can safely assume that the woman was not a hag. She was the wife of an Egyptian officer; she was most likely a beautiful woman for that day and time. The devil never plays fair, and he never takes a day off. He will assault us with every trick in the book, and exploit every angel. So here it is the safest bet, the “sure thing” Joseph shows up and she has dismissed everyone. It is just her and Joseph, all alone, no one watching, it would be so easy to say yes. Some might even do it and say that the only reason why they did it was an attempt to make her stop. Not Joseph, and we can look to his explanation in verse nine to see why he ran. “No one in this house is greater than I am. He has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. So how could I do such a great evil and sin against God?"

He cites all that his earthly master has given him, he talks of how nothing has been with held form him, except her, so then how can he do this great sin against, not his earthly master, but against God! Joseph is dialed in on this, he realizes that all that has been given to him, while it has passed through his earthly masters hands, was bestowed upon him by God. It is the Lord’s blessing that has been poured out on him, his master is nothing more than conduit for the will of God. Joseph realizes that God owns it all, and he is just letting us use it. Going against his earthly master, would be going against God.

The Lord puts us here on this earth for a short time. While we are here he entrusts us with many things. The better we manage what we have been given, the more he will give us as time passes. It is not when times are easy that we will see our blessings increase, it is by perseverance through the though times that we see our harvest expand. We all find ourselves pushed to the point of being uncomfortable; this feeling is nothing more than the Lord helping us grow. There will be temptation to lie, cheat, or steal, and the easy way will always be appealing, but we will be shown through our experiences how to proceed down this road of life. It is when we come face to face with the temptations of the devil himself that we will have the chance to show the Lord our Love for him. Joseph understood that. Temptation should not be feared, but it should be recognized for what it is. While many will say that the devils temptations are a chance for us to do something wrong, I say it is a chance for us to show our love for the Lord. It is the prime opportunity to show our strength and the level of our faith. It is a chance for us to look up to the heavens and tell the Lord that what we are going through now is an easy challenge and we welcome the next chance to be victorious.


I know I say often that God will not allow us to be tempted more than we can withstand, we also know that the evil one will push all the way up to that line. There is no doubt that there was a great amount of temptation, but Joseph was a man of faith he knew the true cost of relenting. I pray that we can all recognize that the right thing is the only thing to do. We might be tempted, we might have lies spread about us, we might even be thrown in jail. As long as we are doing the right thing, and following the path of Christ, the earthly hardship is of little matter.

Peace,
Rev. Thetford