YouTube Channel: To watch a video version of any of these messages, please visit: https://youtube.com/rickpina
Today we continue our series entitled, “Faith and Patience Volume IV — The Wonder Twins”. I am using Joseph as a good example of our need for patience. We are seeking to learn from the different phases of Joseph’s life. Each phase (paternal, pit, Potiphar, prison, and palace/Prime Minister) has significance to this series and to our lives. There are lessons to be learned in every season.
(James 1:2-4 TPT)
2 My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties see it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can!
3 For you know that when your faith is tested it stirs up power within you to endure all things.
4 And then as your endurance grows even stronger it will release perfection into every part of your being until there is nothing missing and nothing lacking.
(Ecc 3:1 ERV)
There is a right time for everything, and everything on earth will happen at the right time.
(Gen 42:9 ERV)
9 Then Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed about his brothers…
So what does this mean for you today? A few things.
1. Never Abort God’s Dream For Your Life!
By the time we get to Genesis 42:9, the 10 brothers who betrayed Joseph were in his presence. Since he was the Prime Minister (the Sultan), they bowed before him with their faces to the ground. The scene must have jogged Joseph’s memory. Our text says that Joseph remembered the dreams.
If you remember the story, Joseph had two dreams. The scene before him was the completion of the first. In the first dream, Joseph was out in a field with these same 10 brothers. They were all gathering bundles of wheat when, all of a sudden, Joseph’s bundle stood straight up and their bundles circled around his and bowed down (Gen 37:7). When Joseph told his brothers about the dream, it was the proverbial “straw that broke the camel’s back.” The brothers already did not like Joseph, because of the favor he had with their father. But when he openly shared the dream, the Bible tells us that they hated him for it. They hated him so much that they wanted him dead.
Over 20 years later, Joseph looks down at the men who betrayed him, who threw him in a pit and who sold him as a slave. He sees their faces to the ground and he remembers the dream. We will get into the ‘wild goose chase’ that he sends them on after this. But for this morning, I want to focus on the fact that he remembered the dream. More than half his life had expired between the time of the dream and the completion, but he still remembered. He held on to that God-given dream and he believed that someday it would come to pass. Joseph’s “someday” was that day!
a) God puts things in your heart and His desires become your dreams. The problem for many of us is not accepting the dream, but rather developing the patience required to see the dream come to fruition. Since God looks at everything through the lens of eternity, it is quite normal for God to put a dream in your heart that may not come to pass for years or even decades. This is why operating in faith, and adding patience to your faith is important. Faith believes in the dream. Patience enables you to hold on long enough to see it come to pass.
b) If you have faith and patience, both working in your life, you will see the manifestation of every promise from God. Every dream will come to pass, but you have to keep the dream alive in your heart.
c) Never abort a dream that came from God. If you abort your dream, you run the risk of missing out on God’s best.
2. Life is Better when it is Lived With DREAMS!
Are you a dreamer? Do you have a God-given dream? What dream have yet to come to pass in your life? No matter how long it takes between the promise and the performance, never give up on your dream.
I grew up in a neighborhood full of broken homes and broken dreams. Many of the children I grew up with talked about being great someday. Within the innocence of a child’s heart, God-given dreams are free to live, to play out over and over again, and to inspire child, even in the most dire of circumstances.
The crack cocaine epidemic grew up around me. I saw grown men and women addicted to crack, walking around like zombies in my neighborhood. In addition to crack, people were hooked on heroin, LSD, Angel Dust, alcohol, and many other things. As a child, my friends and I played tag and other games in abandoned buildings. We had to deal with the constant fear of violence and most of us saw murders committed in front of us before the age of 12. But what’s amazing is that no matter how harsh the environment, children dream. I know I dreamed of getting out of East New York, Brooklyn at some point. I had dreams. My friends had dreams. As children, we all dream.
The challenge for dreams come later, when “real life” catches up with you. Most of my friends gave up on their dreams. They buckled under the pressure of the harsh environment and the realities of life. But some of us keep the dream alive, no matter what! Joseph was one of those people. What kept him going when he was a slave, what kept him going when he was a prisoner, were the dreams God placed in his heart. You would have thought that the pit and the prison would have made him abort his destiny, but amazingly enough, he held on to God’s dream. Many years later, and after lots of challenging situations, Joseph was looking down at his brothers and he remembered the dream.
a) We all have our challenges. We all go through whatever we have to go through in order to see God’s best manifest in our lives. But my message for you this morning is simple: your life will be better if you hold on to your dream! You will still have to go through what you need to go through, but if you hold on to your dream, if you keep the dream alive in your heart as Joseph did, you will be able to not just ENDURE the journey, but you can actually ENJOY IT!
b) Never stop being a dreamer. Open your heart to God-sized dreams — things you receive from God that you know you could never do without Him — and live your life with an expectation that will do what He implanted in your heart and mind! Life is much better when you are a dreamer!
3. We serve a God who can resurrect dead dreams.
Do you remember your dream? Are you still expecting it to come to pass? Or have you allowed your God-given dreams to die?
We serve a God who gives life to the dead. One of the major things God resurrects in our lives is dead dreams. While you read this, my prayer is that God will bring things back to the forefront of your mind (right now, at this moment); things that you had forgotten about; things that you had given up on. God is bringing them back up because He still wants to manifest them. He never gave up on you. Please do not give up on Him! Remember the dream!
Declaration of Faith:
Father, You placed dreams in my heart and in my mind when I was a child. Then life happened. I have to admit that I gave up on some of those dreams. But my giving-up days are over! I refuse to abort my dream or my destiny. You did not bring me this far to fail. I open my heart to Your dreams. I am open to You resurrecting the dreams I allowed to die. And from this day forward, I will never give up on You or Your dreams for my life. I am a dreamer! Every promise You have ever made me shall come to pass before I die. GREATER IS COMING FOR ME! I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!
