Preaching with a purpose

Do you love God with all your heart? Do you want to please him or please yourself? If you think about it carefully God's way forward for you is the best possible way, so wanting to do his will is the best possible thing for you. We love our friends and family but they often let us down. God will never let us down if we submit to him. Joseph submitted to being a slave in Egypt, then a prisoner, then the second most important person in the kindom. He saw all these events as God's plan for his life. Read about his life in the link below. Interesting Bible People: Joseph

"Oh, I'm worrying again, I can't be trusting in God, so I'll beat myself up about that and worry some more." Of course we worry sometimes and it is a painful thing to go through, but it is a human reaction to life's circumstances. When you are a christian you want to trust God with the outcome of life's difficulties but going through the process to arrive at God's answer can be very difficult. Also when we remember that God's answer may be painful in itself, no matter how right and good, we are bound to be filled with worry. Trusting God is not always a simple or easy option. It is possible to trust God for a final outcome but also be realistic about the difficult pathway to it. So if you are trusting God but finding the day by day living a time of anxiety, don't beat yourself up about it. Exile comes before deliverance. I've just had a worrying time with my daughter being late to give birth and having quite a difficult time. Happil...

Is there someone in your life who you are not forgiving? Was it such a hugely wrong thing they did to you, or was it quite petty? Joseph was sold as a slave into Egypt by his half brothers, but he forgave them because he saw God's hand in everything that had happened to him. His brothers had meant him the worst of harm, but God had a plan to feed his people in time of famine. If Joseph could forgive couldn't you forgive too. To read more of Joseph's story see the link below. Interesting Bible People: Joseph

Joseph's story is now available to you, see the link below. I have been busy on Squidoo again with my Bible story characters. I love creating these pages because I believe these Bible people have a lot to teach us about life. As a child I used to think the people of the past were very different from us, but now I know that this is not so. People have always had the same desires, the same problems; Jealousy, anger, sorrow to name but a few. These people are not pale shadows but real strong people with feelings like us. They struggled to find God and were found by him. Take a look at this link to see a real human struggling against disaster. Interesting Bible People: Joseph

I'm busily writing another of my Squidoo lenses on Interesting Bible People. It's about Joseph. You can't see it yet because I haven't finished it, but I thought I would whet your appetite! Joseph as a young man had to go through many problems. His jealous brothers sold him into slavery, Then he was wrongly accused of forcing his attentions on his master's wife. For this he was thrown into prison. But Joseph always came up smelling of roses. Why? Because God was with him. He trusted God and God did not let him down. His experiences had given him vital training in organising other people and this was vital when the time came for him to save Egypt from famine. Are you going through a bad time? Put your trust in God, He will carry you through and make something good of you. to give you some background to Joseph's story look at this link about his father, Jacob Interesting Bible People:Jacob