Are there rules?
1. To define success as obedience to the teachings of Jesus Christ in God’s Word. This rule of life is simple, to know and do God’s will above all else.
2. To resist the temptation of control by instead placing my confidence in God’s promises.
‘trust in The Lord with all our heart and lean not on your own understanding.’ Proverbs 3:5
3. To resist the temptation of idolatry and trusting in money or possessions rather than God.
4. To resist the temptation of pride by finding my identity and affirmation in Christ alone
5. To submit to the Father and be filled, led and empowered by the Holy Spirit
So, in my coma ‘time’ ceased to exist! The ‘period’ I was ‘out’, I was very much in cognition of everything that occured. I have learned that everything is known! Think about your memory. You cannot make up non occurences. You can imagine but not experience occurences in your existence.
I use the term “existence” as a way of underscoring my ‘dream’ in the coma. It points out that we need to commit our all into The hands of our Creator. I will repeat ALL IS KNOWN!
https://www.openbible.info/topics/god_is_all-knowing
Complexity upon complexity. But it is all so simple! You are in charge of your decisions! The thoughts come, you either dismiss them or dwell on them. Do your thoughts become actions? So when we are contemplating the impact of our thoughts we can see that they strongly affect the entirety of our lives. They provoke our emotions, as well as, our behavioral responses. Our views and perceptions alter how we will feel and thus how we will respond to a situation.
Thoughts are a separate entity from actions and that individuals are capable of keeping them at a distance from each other.
The way we think about something affects the way we feel about it. Our thoughts and feelings influence our behaviors, choices, and ultimately, outcomes.” Also connected to our thoughts and feelings are behaviors. Behaviors are our actions or the ways in which we present ourselves to others. REMEMBER you shall give account of ALL after this ‘period’ of life.
Interestingly enough, we have history to observe thoughts that became actions and the results of such. So many examples/so much history….
Right quick; Joseph was sold into slavery by his biological brothers! He faced so very much in the way of challenges! He had dreamt of his brothers sheaves of wheat bowing to his sheath… Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.” His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us?
In his second dream, Joseph sees the sun, moon, and 11 stars bowing down to him.
https://www.logos.com/grow/bsm-what-are-the-6-dreams-in-the-story-of-joseph/
So, why do we touch on this again? Time! So very much occured between the dream and its actualization! I will state the obvious; if Joseph had fallen prey to the temptation re: Portiphar’s wife so very much would have occured contrary to God’s will for his purpose. The temptress was the wife of Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh’s guard in the time of Jacob and his twelve sons. According to the Book of Genesis, she falsely accused Joseph of attempted rape after he rejected her sexual advances, resulting in his imprisonment. https://www.bibleref.com/Genesis/39/Genesis-39-14.html
Note: In fact, had this been attempted by a slave execution of said slave would have more likely than not justifiable.
Genesis 40 verses 1-3 tells us that after Joseph had been in prison for some time (and it could have been years), the butler and the baker of the king of Egypt were thrown into prison with Joseph because they had offended their lord, the king of Egypt. Who were these men, and why were they in prison?
The butler and baker were two very important positions in the court of an ancient king. Not only did these men prepare and serve to the king his food, the butler his drinks, and the baker his meals, but these men were usually also close confidants of the king, men who were with the king day in and day out, men whom he would consult and who would advise him. Their position required that they be trustworthy men. They were not mere slaves, but they held a high profile position in the court.
Now, something had happened that made Pharaoh suspicious of and angry with these two men. Maybe it was as simple as Pharaoh having an upset stomach from some food he ate, or maybe there was an actual assassination plot against the king in which one of these men participated. It does seem from what follows in the chapter that the baker was indeed guilty. Initially he keeps his dream to himself, and then, as it turns out, he is executed.
In verses 3 and 4 we learn that the captain of the guard charged Joseph with their care and that Joseph served them, the idea being that these men were locked up tight in their cells, but Joseph had freedom to move around and to get for them the things they needed for their daily life in the prison. Interestingly, the captain of the guard is Potiphar, and this tells us that Potiphar again trusted Joseph. Maybe he found out the truth of his wife’s lie, or maybe he simply went on trusting Joseph, seeing that the Lord was with him.
In one night, both the butler and the baker have a dream. Dreams, in ancient Egyptian culture, were considered very important, and there were people whose lives were devoted to the interpretation of dreams. What is significant about the dreams of the butler and baker is their similarity to each other, that they came as a pair, and that they were so memorable. These were not like ordinary dreams, which are soon forgotten, but they were vivid, and when the butler and baker told them to each other, it was obvious to them that these dreams were a revelation from God. In the story of Joseph, this is the main way that God reveals Himself—in pairs of dreams, first to Joseph, then here to butler and baker, and then next to Pharaoh.
The importance of these two dreams is not so much their content and what they predict. What happens to the butler and baker is not all that important in this history. What is important, though, is that God sends these dreams as the connection between Joseph and the palace of Pharaoh, which will lead in the end to Joseph meeting his brothers. That makes these dreams important. God is working in this history, making connections that will bring Joseph to the position of ruler in Egypt, when he will again meet his brothers, and his entire family will move to Egypt.
Do you see here God’s sovereign and loving hand of providence? In two dreams, experienced by two unbelieving Egyptians, in a prison, far from Canaan, God is working.
And this is the secret to Joseph’s response to his unjust imprisonment. Joseph does not know where these dreams are leading, but he must see God’s hand here, and that is an encouragement to him to wait on God.
What we see here is a portrait of Joseph, a study of his character. There are a few things in Joseph’s behavior that show something of his character.
The first is that Joseph rejoices in his trials. In James 1:2, we are exhorted to “count it all joy” when we fall into divers temptations. James is saying that when different trials come our way, we should learn to see them as God-sent, for our good, and so be thankful and even glad that we receive them.
That is what we see in Joseph. In Genesis 40:6, the morning after the two dreams, we read that Joseph came in to the butler and baker, and looked at them, and noticed that they were sad. It does not say that Joseph was sad, but that he noticed that his inmates were sad. If anyone ought to have a sad face here, it was Joseph. The butler and baker were in prison on a whim of Pharaoh, and surely they would not be here for long, but Joseph does not know if he will ever see the light of day again. And yet, he does not say, “You think you have it bad, listen to my situation.” Rather because he has learned to count it all joy, he is able to see their sorrow and have compassion on them.
That is the second thing here, that Joseph in his trials has compassion for others and is willing to help them. Far from pouting and crying “poor me,” Joseph looks at his fellow inmates and says, Why are you sad? And then, when they say, We both had dreams and there is no one to interpret them, Joseph shows his willingness to help. If Joseph would have said, “Ah, dreams? I do not want anything to do with them. Last time dreams got me into big trouble,” we would understand that. But, instead, he offers to help them to understand their dreams.
Here we have an important biblical and Christian response to our own trials, namely this, that we look from our trials out to others, and sympathize and help others in need. Paul, in 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, explaining why he has trials, says this, “Blessed be God, even The Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” He recognizes that one of God’s purposes in his trials is that he may be able to sympathize with and comfort and help others in their difficult experiences.
The third thing we see in Joseph here is that he takes every opportunity to speak of his faith in God. When the butler and baker say, “there is no one to interpret our dreams,” Joseph’s reply is not, “Well, I can do it,” but this, “Do not interpretations belong to God? tell me them, I pray you.” Even though he recognizes that God has given him the gift of interpreting dreams, Joseph attributes this to God. Do not interpretations belong to God? In the Egyptian culture, that was a dangerous statement. So many claimed that they had this ability. Even the butler and baker are thinking of men, of people who can interpret dreams, when they say, “there is no one to interpret our dreams.” But Joseph says, “Don’t look to man, look to God.” If your dreams are from God then only He can tell you what they mean.
To curtail our diatribe; the dreams were correctly interpreted – So the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream. He said to him, “In my dream I saw a vine in front of me, and on the vine were three branches. As soon as it budded, it blossomed, and its clusters ripened into grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was in my hand, and I took the grapes, squeezed them into Pharaoh’s cup and put the cup in his hand.” “This is what it means,” Joseph said to him. “The three branches are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will lift up your head and restore you to your position, and you will put Pharaoh’s cup in his hand, just as you used to do when you were his cupbearer. But when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness; mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. For I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon.” When the chief baker saw that Joseph had given a favorable interpretation, he said to Joseph, “I too had a dream: On my head were three baskets of bread. In the top basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, but the birds were eating them out of the basket on my head.”
“This is what it means,” Joseph said. “The three baskets are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head and hang you on a tree. And the birds will eat away your flesh.” Now the third day was Pharaoh’s birthday, and he gave a feast for all his officials. He lifted up the heads of the chief cupbearer and the chief baker in the presence of his officials: He restored the chief cupbearer to his position, so that he once again put the cup into Pharaoh’s hand,22but he hanged the chief baker, just as Joseph had said to them in his interpretation.
Note this: The chief cupbearer, however, did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.
https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Everything-Happening-For-A-Reason
We see the birth of a worldwidd nation; the coming of The Word of God as Man; offers eternal life to all who come to Jesus Who paid for us with His death on the cross!
Yet, Jesus chose to die for me. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates His own Love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by His blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through Jesus!
And we pray:
Father LORD, I come before You pleading my case. In the grand scheme of existence, I am nothing. For a reason, I am and exist. My Creator, You made me for a reason. Lord cleanse me with The blood of Jesus, forgive my sins, LORD make me worthy to stand before You. Father, Your will be done in and with my life. I submit to You and I pray, Amen.