TRACKING THE BLOODLINE OF THE BLESSING OF THE LORD !

TRACKING THE BLOODLINE OF THE BLESSING OF THE LORD ! Had Joseph taken that attitude, he would have been in the same boat his brothers were in. He would have cut himself off from THE BLESSING by stepping out of love and into strife. That's what Satan wanted Joseph--- and all of us-- to do. He knows as long as we're walking in love, THE BLESSING of Abraham that ours through Christ Jesus will keep working in our lives. It doesn't matter how people treat us, it we'll just keep walking in love towards them, they can't steal our BLESSING. Joseph is proof of that. In spite of their mistreatment, he went out to see about his brothers in the field. He kept on trying to bless them. When he found them, instead of thanking him, "they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer, cometh. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into some pit, and we will say, some evil beast hath devoured him: and we shall see what will become of his dreams" (verses 18-20). Joseph brothers didn't realize it, but when they morked "the dreamer," they morked God. They ridiculed the covenant message He'd sent them and attacked the messenger ! It was a sad scene when you think about it. There was Joseph, walking up with a big grin on his face, glad to see his brothers. But they weren't smiling back. They jumped on him, ripped off his coat of many colors and begin beating him. Jacob must have talked Joseph and his brothers some things about walking in THE BLESSING because Joseph didn't even fight back. In the face of all the pain his brothers caused him, he never attempted to hurt them. Joseph's brothers would have killed him but one of them, Ruben, intervened and said, "Let's not kill him. Let's just throw him in a whole will and leave him there." Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat a meal. Then they lifted their eyes and looked, and there was a company of Ishmaelites, coming from Gilead with their camels, bringing spices, balm, and myrrh, on their way to carry them down to Egypt. So Judah said to his brothers, "what profit is there if we kill our brother and conceal his blood ?, Let us sell him to the Israelites, and let not our hands be upon him, for he is our brother and our flesh." And his brothers listened (verses 24-27), THE BLESSING was working on Joseph's behalf. Why do you think that caravan showed up at just the right time to give the brothers the idea to sell Joseph instead of leaving him in that whole to die ? It was working for Joseph, just as it works for us, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. THE BLESSING, under God's direction and power, because that caravan to leave at the proper day and hour to be right there when Joseph needed it. Some people would claim that was just coincidence. But I've discovered in my own life, the more I walk by faith in THE BLESSING, the more "coincidences" pile up in my favor. RUNNING AWAY FROM SIN ! That's the way it was with Joseph. Even before he got into trouble, THE BLESSING was preparing his deliverance. It started maneuvering him back into a place of prosperity the moment the slave traders pulled him up out of that hole. It was THE BLESSING that brought him into the house of a wealthy, influential Egyptian officer named Potiphar. Through Joseph went into that household as a slave, it wasn't long before he was promoted because Potiphar saw that Joseph had THE BLESSING on him. By Joseph's generation, people all over that part of the world had heard about THE BLESSING of Abraham. So, when Potiphar solved that everything Joseph did was a wild success, he knew exactly what was going on, and he put that BLESSED young man in charge of his entire estate. Under Joseph's supervision, the cattle increased. The horses, camels, sheep and goats multiplied. The crops multiplied. Everything Joseph put his hand to begin doing better than it had before. Keep in mind, he was still just a teenager. He'd never been trained to buy and sell livestock. He'd never earned a degree in ranch management. But THE BLESSING on him taught him what he needed to know.