Ben Shiller Jacob
“There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?”
Genesis 39:9
While I was looking through the passage of Joseph in Potiphar’s house, the response of Joseph to potiphar’s wife stood out. I found his response was exceptional and nearly impossible for a young man like Joseph to say at his very moment of temptation.
Joseph replied to his tempter, his master’s wife with a strong NO, NO! As a matter of fact, his reply was deeply rooted and grounded in his dad’s God, Yahweh.
In Gen 39:9, Joseph replied to Potiphar’s wife that no one is greater than he in Potiphar’s house because everything his master owns has been given to Joseph except the food his master eats. Joseph was given authority and power in his master’s house over everything except one person, that was Zelikah because she was his master’s wife. Following statement is notable because Joseph was not saying it is wickedness and sin against his master, Potiphar but against Yahweh.
Where did Joseph learn the fear of the Lord?
It’s amazing to see how fearful Joseph was of Yahweh. We must remember by this time, there weren’t written laws given to them yet. Why it amazed me that considering Joseph’s age is very important here. Let’s see how old he was when this incident happened.
1Now 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.
Genesis 37:1-2
When Joseph was sold to Ishmaelites merchant at the age of seventeen (Gen 37:2).
46 Joseph was thirty years old when he stood before Pharaoh king of Egypt. And Joseph went out from the presence of Pharaoh and went throughout all the land of Egypt.
Genesis 41:46
Joseph became second in command in Egypt was at the age of 30. So we can conlude that he spent his entire youth and early stage of adulthood in Potiphar’s house.
The reason I’m pointing out Joseph age is to put your thinking cap on because most fearsome trials Joseph suffered in his lifetime were during his teenage and early adulthood stages (doesn’t mean he hadn’t had any trial afterwards). Joseph had to endure life determining trials when he was emotionally and psychologically unstable and immature. Yet, Bible explicitly says whenever Joseph had met with trials and temptations, he had no struggle to find the path of righteousness. King David had similar experiences when he was a young shepherd boy, how faithful and protective was his Lord to him, later he sang about his experience with the Shepherd in Psalm 23,
Yahweh restores my soul;
He leads me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake
Psalm 23: 3
So, now, my question is what had kept Joseph, David and many other characters in the path of righteousness when they were young?
Speaking of Joseph, I would say Jacob, his father (one of the Patriarchs) raised his children in the fear of the Lord, Yahweh and all his supernatural experiences including his former nature being cunning and selfish that was transformed by an encounter with Yahweh, caused his very being to follow him wholeheartedly. Out of his 12 children, Joseph was the only child who took his father’s instructions seriously. Other children heard all their father’s experiences but were unable to find curiosity in all these spiritual encounters. About them what Yeshua mentioned in one of His profound parables, the parable of Sower,
“A farmer went out to sow his seed. 4 As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. 5 Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. 6 But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. 7 Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants.
Matthew 13:3-7
This clearly indicates the likeliness of not being benefited from what you hear. We could listen, read and mug up His Scriptures and still not be fruitful in them.
Whereas about Joseph, Yeshua continued,
Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Matthew 13:8
In Proverbs, King Solomon says,
To receive the instruction of wisdom,
Justice, judgment, and equity;
Proverb 1:3
There is difference between hearing and receiving a word of instruction. The former is passive engagement of the listener to the speaker and the latter is active engagement.
You will only come to a mode of receiving a word of instruction, only when you truly respect the instructor. Receiving an instruction sprouts out only from the soil of respect and value. It is imperative for children to respect and value their parents in order to be fruitful and prosperous later in their life.
Receiving, in other words, taking. This means stretching out your hands and grabbing hold of wisdom and knowledge that were spoken. There is an active effort from the listener when he is in receiving a word.
Joseph respected and valued his parents. Hence, he grabbed the Teachings of Yahweh, he let these instructions to mold his nature by humbling himself. The other fascinating fact about taking instruction is that when you actively immerse yourself in godly instructions, it generates curiosity! Curiosity acts as a catalyst to pursue the invisible one and only Almighty God, Yahweh and His Kingdom.
In other words, curiosity is a driving force to become like Yahweh. It gives us a sense of being more like our Heavenly Father in every aspect of our life. This shaped Joseph’s character. This fueled a drastic change in Joseph’s character from being presumptuous to humble.
We all have gone through our youth period. We understand how fluctuating, inconstant and impulsive we were during this period. We tend to pursue our unsettled emotions and pleasures though they lead us into troubles. When it is extremely difficult for even the youth who are raised in families with Godly values and principles fall into waywardness during this stage, we can only imagine the situation of those don’t have such.
It is important to be mindful of our children and how well they are disciplined. Are they being trained according to the Word of God, His justice, judgement, righteousness, and equity? If not, they won’t not be able to withstand trials and temptations they may face down the line.
As a parent, you cannot be with your children in all phases of their life. There will be times when you have limited access to them. There will be times when they need to step out from your circle. There will be times when they must make crucial decisions like Joseph had. In all these, what would make them be righteous, prosperous and fruitful is your way of life or lifestyle in which your children are brought up and nurtured.
Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Proverbs 22:6
Steps To Take As a Christian Parent
Bringing up a child in Yahweh’s way is solely up to their parents. The point is who has the knowledge of good and evil, parents or children? Unmistakeably, parents. Raising your children in an ‘Eden like environment’ is parents’ responsibility.
Next question, how would describe your home? how do you decribe your home? Who reigns your home, the tree of knowledge of good and evil or the Tree of Life? or the world or the Kingdom of Yahweh?
This reminds me of Yeshua when He rebuked Pharisees about their lifestyle,
5 You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.
Matthew 7:5
If parents take time to analyse themselves, come to a place of repentence and take a bold decisions wherever it needs, family has entered into the phase of renewal and revival. Children belong to them essentially don’t stray away that easily. Because they are indirectly being renewed along with their parents with the knowledge of Light.
- Children are the very essence of their parents
When a child is born, their mind is fresh as one’s mind in the early morning. It lacks preoccupied information. It is more or like a brand-new computer or laptop, its performance willl be high as its memory is unused. Because of this, a computer responds quickly to whatever command we input. Because it is unoccupied with various data. Similarly, a newborn lacks information, any understanding or knowledge of how to carry out basic things to survive in its new environment. Since newborn’s brain is unused, their brain picks whatever they sense from the environment and tend to reproduces it. The affinity of their soul to knowledge and understanding is high. That’s why people say teach them when they are young new skills as they will learn them quickly and do efficiently.
Parents often rebuke children and blame their children for their wrong behaviors. Most of the time, children learn them from their parents. So, as parents, it is our assignment to assess ourselves, find those areas or aspects of our life which are not under the lordship of Yeshua. A better understanding of oneself is the initial step.
2. Remove every distraction of the devil from you and family
This step is carried out with the help of constant communion of the Holy Spirit and willful surrendering of oneself to Him. Identifying those areas or things by which you could easily deviate from the Kingdom life such as indulging in worldly pleasure, wasting time, following one’s ungodly passion, unnecessary relationships (I’m not talking about immoralities here but even those people who are not your destiny helpers or don’t have any role in taking you to reach your destiny) etc. Bring Kingdom of God in your family by assigning specific time for quiet time with the Lord and replace distractions of life with Kingdom conversations, prayers, hymns etc. How fast you can implement this in your family completely depends upon your zeal, necessity and desire. No matter what, your total attention and focus should be upon the Lord and His Kingdom. Strive hard to put the Lord above any other matter! It needs a lot of commitment, dedication, perseverance and determination. In order to implement this both father and mother must be on the same page and actively involved. They must work as a team, center being the Holy Spirit. This type of relationship is mentioned by King Solomon,
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12
3. Form an Eden like family
Yahweh made the garden of Eden for Adam and Eve. Everything Adam and Eve needed was provided in Eden. The Garden of Eden, also called paradise, one of its many means, ‘an enclosed place’ [1]. In other words, a protected area. This was Yahweh’s plan that this most alluring land should be given to Adam and Eve for tending and keeping. This was the great pleasure of His will that Adam and Eve should have dominion over this exquisite piece of land accommodating all the living creatures that one can imagine. When they were both formed, Yahweh put them in the garden of Eden, and they were given authority and dominion over every living substance in this guarded area.
The point I’m making here is Yahweh-ordained family is like the Eden. Family is a divine piece of land which is well belted like paradise was. Marital covenant is divine and restricted. Unauthorised entry to this land is extremely prohibited to anyone except husband and wife whatsoever. However, because of the ignorance and lack of knowledge about this marital covenant, most often both the parties (husband and wife) of the covenant allow unauthorized to come into their life, compromise their protection, give away their dominion and authority to illegals. No one could come into this protected covenant which we call family unless parties of the covenant give access. Majority of the Christian families have lost their protection due to their ignorance and given their personal space to the scoundrels.
This is a call to action to take every step to identify those walls that are ruined by your ungodly desire, passion and carelessness. Start rebuilding the walls of your heart and family by asking the Holy Spirit to show those broken fences that gave access to the devil. The devil gets into a family through people, things of the world and so on. It needs fine tuning to discern those people and things that easily deviate you from the path of righteousness Husband and wife or parents and children must constantly work out together to make their family untouched and secured.
4. Immerse your family in Yeshua, the Messiah alone
While you remove every distraction of the enemy and rebuild the walls around your family, protect from intruders, family must be grounded and established in the knowledge of Yeshua, the Messiah. This cannot be achieved by being religious, reading scriptures every day, attending church services regularly. You need to be a seeker of the Way, the Truth, and the Life. You can be a Christian, enrobed in religious works and lack the very essence of Yeshua and His desires.
In Christ Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
Colossians 2:3
You will not find what your soul is searching from anywhere except in Messiah, the Christ Jesus in Him alone everything is contained.
But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.
Matthew 6:33
The beginning of every problem in our life arises when we restructure or reorder Yahweh’s Word according to our circumstances. Yeshua did not say seek all your needs first and the kingdom of God shall be found in you. Instead, seek the things that are above and everything we need will be given to us as its byproduct. Prioritize Yahweh and His righteousness. When we engage with the kingdom of Yahweh, the result will be fruitfulness, abundance, overflowing goodness, prosperity, anything and everything. Your family and your descendants will be blessed immensely and profoundly, and the unbelievers will see your prosperity and will be drawn to the kingdom of Yahweh with little physical efforts. The glory of the Yeshua will be manifested in you and overflow to the environment you are in and to the people you are engaging with.
5. Now, you are in the position of reigning the fruit of your womb!
Once you accomplish all the above steps, now you are ready or in authority to discipline your child. Until you discipline your own life, you are not entitled or in a position to teach your children the way you want them to be because if you being matured cannot bring the change that you are looking for in your own life, how in the world are your children going to do? Children do what parents do. When parents are grounded in the land of Eden, the Lord being their ultimate Source of life, then their children will thrive and produce all the fruits of the Spirit in all seasons.
Communion with a Contrite Heart
Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for this beautiful gift of life in Yeshua. Thank You for counting us important when we counted ourselves useless. We pray that you open our eyes to recognize those compromised areas that permitted the devil and his kingdom to creep into our families and enable us to repent genuinely for our waywardness from your way. We give You complete access to our family and You shall reign in our midst, and we may savor the goodness of the Lord and fatness of the land in Yeshua’s magnificent name we pray – AMEN!
Notes:
[1] Definition of Paradise in the biblestudytools.