Kindle Notes & Highlights
He never intended you to be a victim to this life or to circumstances.
In life we have to make the choice to move past the places of pain and keep going towards the future God has for us.
After his failure, Abraham traveled a direction God did not tell him to go. As a result, he ended up right back where he began. Often our failures lead us to make decisions on our own and do things God never told us to do.
Logic never gets us to God or His promises.
After we receive a blessing from God, testing always follows. For example, every week when we get paid, are we going to give back to God what is His or are we going to keep it all for ourselves? God gives us what we ask for, then examines our hearts and actions to see if we love what He gave us more than we love Him.
God can do more with our five minutes of prayer than we can in five hours of work on our own.
If she had not been willing to serve, she would have only returned home with water for her family and nothing else. How many blessings do we miss because our pride gets in the way? How hard is it for you to be treated like a servant?
The servant only did what his master sent him to do and only said what his master told him to say. He didn’t give his opinion. We must be careful to follow what God has told us to do and say. When we obey, we will get what we desire.
I love the saying, “God measures our faithfulness in years and not days.” We all have bad days, but God looks for the theme of our lives to be obedience and faithfulness (v. 5). Will we make mistakes? Yes. Are we going to fall short? Yes. His grace is big enough. We choose to keep seeking what He has for our lives.
“If what you have can’t fill your need; then it is seed to sow!”
Our obedience always opens the door of God’s provision.
The enemy tries to stop our wells any way he can: through offense, busy schedules, wrong thinking, etc. We will only fulfill our calling if we take control over the wells in our life.
Partial obedience is still disobedience.
If we aren’t careful, we will be just like Jacob’s house (and the scribes and Pharisees of the New Testament) changing the outside and not taking care of our heart. We still do this today. We focus on our actions, clothing, and behaviors forgetting that it is our beliefs that change our actions and desires. Wrong believing will always result in wrong living.
In your lowest moments, you still represent Jesus in the spiritual realm. Your disobedience does not disqualify you from the blessing and the call of God on your life.
Jacob spent years running away, but pain had followed him everywhere he went. Until he came face-to-face with who God had called him to be.
When people already don’t like you, they will despise even more when you announce God’s plan for your life.
God’s blessings are bigger than betrayal, accusations, and position.
Even when men forget about us, God never does!
Genesis 41:25–37 Joseph’s God-given ability to interpret dreams brought him before Pharaoh. His strategy kept him there. Our gift is the God part of who we are. Our strategy is how we develop and prepare ourselves. Joseph didn’t waste his time in captivity. He used that time to develop keen leadership skills.
We can know what God says will happen and still make the choice not to prepare.
When guilt is our driving force, we accept misfortune as part of our punishment and feel like we must live in the consequences of our mistakes.
When you live in guilt, even blessings seem like a curse. That is why people can experience something good and still feel a sense of dread, because their guilt rejects any good that comes into their life.
Our lack of preparation makes us a slave to the enemy.
The 20% tax in verse 26 seems high, doesn’t it? Most credit cards are 18-24% interest. I don’t think that is a coincidence. Most Americans aren’t slaves in a physical sense, but they are in a financial sense.
Judah’s portion of land later became Jerusalem. Verse 11 is echoed in Isaiah 63:1–3 as the prophet Isaiah foretold that their Redeemer (Jesus) would come. Jesus fulfills this prophecy in Revelation 19:11–16.
