From Dream to Destiny: The Ten Tests You Must Go Through to Fulfill God's Purpose for Your Life (9 page)

So, remember that faithfulness—good stewardship—is what causes us to be successful in everything we do. It is what caused Joseph to be successful. It is what causes us to have the favor of God and His presence in our lives. And I want all of us to have God’s favor on our lives. The wonderful truth is that God’s favor is available to everyone and anyone!

You can live in the favor, the blessing and the prosperity of God. God can bless you and He wants to bless you.

So be faithful in little things. Be a good employee, a good steward “as to the Lord” (Col. 3:23). Spend time in God’s Word and watch your faith increase. As faith comes, obedience will naturally follow. And when you honor God and walk in obedience to Him, He will honor you with His presence. Then His favor and blessings will rest on your life, and, like Joseph, you will prosper in all that you do.

And then you will know that you’ve passed the test of stewardship. You can look forward with joy to hearing Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord” (Matt. 25:21).

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

It had been unusually quiet as I preached that Sunday.

Now, I don’t pastor the most vocal congregation in the world. Nevertheless, on most occasions I can count on a steady scattering of “amens,” and “that’s rights.” But not this day. Throughout my sermon, though my preaching was often passionate, the crowd remained somber and silent.

My topic? Sexual purity.

Afterward, I was asked an interesting question: “Why do you suppose there weren’t very many ‘Amens’ today?”

“What do you think?” was my only reply.

It is actually rather odd that the subject of sexuality would make any of us uncomfortable these days. After all, we live in a society that appears to be absolutely saturated with sex and sensuality. And it seems bent on making us as comfortable as can be about sex and related matters!

In the recent past, our country endured a scandal involving immorality at the highest level of elected office. Some were genuinely appalled; others merely viewed the incident from a political standpoint. The majority, however, couldn’t care less. But what shocked me most about this very sad chapter in our history was the widely held idea that the President’s private behavior had nothing to do with his leadership of
our country. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Whatever your political views, you must understand that there are certain truths that will never change—and God has spelled out these truths quite clearly for us in the Bible.

The Purity Test: Sexual Stewardship

Our popular culture may declare that sexual morality has nothing to do with character; but God begs to differ: Sexual morality has
everything
to do with character. And character is very important to God. So if we want to walk in the destinies that God has planned, we are going to have to understand what He has to say about sexual purity.

Don’t misunderstand what I’m saying here—God made us to be sexual beings. He wants every person to enjoy a wonderful, fulfilling sex life with his or her spouse. But just as with every other gift God has given us, we have a responsibility to steward that gift in a way that is pleasing to Him. God is watching to see if we will be faithful stewards in this area of our lives as well. Remember, if we are faithful in little things, God knows that He can trust us with much. But if we are unfaithful in little things, God says that we will also be unfaithful in much (see Luke 16:10).

It is very important to understand this—because a person who will be immoral in this area of his or her life will also be immoral in other areas. A person who will cheat on his or her spouse will also cheat his or her employer (or his or her country). This is not an idea that I came up with. This is simply
what God has said in His Word.
God said that someone who will be unfaithful in a small thing will also be unfaithful in a large thing (see Luke 16:10). I didn’t say that—Jesus did! So our sexual conduct does matter very much to God. It is very important that we be found faithful in this area of our lives.

Character is a foundational issue. If character goes, the rest of the house goes. If the foundation is bad, everything else will be bad. We can never “just” be sexually immoral—because sexual immorality opens the door to a host of other sins. If we are sexually immoral, we will also lie and be deceptive, because we have to cover up our sin. The Bible says that King David was “a man after [God’s] own heart” (Acts 13:22). Yet sexual
immorality drove him to lie, and eventually even to murder, in an attempt to cover up his sin.

That’s why I’m so saddened to see our culture has declined to the point that many would say a leader’s sexual immorality has no bearing on his leadership ability. Appalling as this is, it is a sobering indication that our nation needs revival and repentance—and it ought to stir us to search our own hearts and to pray. But whatever ideas the popular culture may be promoting, only God’s ideas really matter.

In God’s kingdom, character has everything to do with fitness for leadership. God says that we must be found faithful in small things before He will set us over much (see Luke 16:10). So it is important for us to understand that if we allow any compromise in this area, we are putting our God-given destiny at risk.

Of course, God is a redeemer by nature. If we have fallen in this area and we sincerely repent from our hearts before God, He will forgive and restore us. But if we persist in immorality, we will not step into our destiny. Why? Because God is looking for faithful stewards whom He can trust wholeheartedly.

This is the Purity Test—and in our sensual society each one of us faces this critical test on a daily basis. But we can all draw inspiration from the story of Joseph. When faced with great temptation, Joseph passed this test with flying colors! Genesis 39 tells the story.

And it came to pass after these things that his master’s wife cast longing eyes on Joseph, and she said, “Lie with me.” But he refused and said to his master’s wife, “Look, my master does not know what is with me in the house, and he has committed all that he has to my hand. There is no one greater in this house than I, nor has he kept back anything from me but you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” So it was, as she spoke to Joseph day by day, that he did not heed her, to lie with her or to be with her. But it happened about this time, when Joseph went into the house to do his work, and none of the men of the house was inside, that she caught him by his garment, saying, “Lie with me.” But he left his
garment in her hand, and fled and ran outside (Gen. 39:7-12).

One reason Joseph passed this test with flying colors is very simple: When the temptation became too great for him to walk away—he ran! God advises us to follow Joseph’s example and to “flee sexual immorality” (1 Cor. 6:18). The literal meaning of that word “flee” is “to run away.”
¹
So God doesn’t say that we should just walk away from immorality. He tells us to run from it! And that is exactly what Joseph did—even though he had to leave his garment in Potiphar’s wife’s hand in order to get away.

Notice what Joseph calls immorality—“great wickedness, and sin against God” (Gen. 39:9). Joseph ran away from temptation because he understood something that our society seems to have forgotten—that sexual immorality is evil and sinful. And Joseph knew that the wrong done would not only be against his master Potiphar. Joseph also understood that sexual immorality would be a wrong done against God—that it would harm his relationship with his Lord. So Joseph ran.

In many ways this is just another aspect of the test of faithful stewardship, because in the Ten Commandments, God forbids us to covet anything that belongs to our neighbor, including our neighbor’s wife (see Exod. 20:17). Potiphar’s wife was deliberately tempting Joseph to covet her, so Joseph’s stewardship was now being tested in that area. The question was no longer whether Joseph could steward another man’s
things
faithfully. Rather, now it was, Could he exercise faithful stewardship of another man’s
wife?

But there is an even more important question here. Could Joseph steward his own body? Could he steward his own appetites and desires? Would Joseph serve God faithfully in that area of his life?

This is a very important question and one that each of us will have to face. We like to think we can discipline ourselves to walk with God, to spend time in the Word and to spend time in prayer. But many of us cannot even steward our physical appetites in a way that is honoring to God. This is one of the first areas in which we must learn to discipline ourselves, because if we cannot bring our own bodies under control, how will we be faithful in any other area? The apostle Paul understood this.
In 1 Corinthians 9:27, he said, “I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should become disqualified.”

If we don’t want to be disqualified from our God-given destiny, we must learn to keep our physical body under control—and not only in the area of food. We must bring our sexual appetite under control as well.

Sexual temptation is an issue every person must confront. I was once speaking at a men’s retreat and I asked the question, “How many of you men have ever struggled with lust?” Around 90 percent of the men raised their hands. So I reflected a bit and then said, “Well, it’s obvious the other 10 percent of you struggle with lying!”

Let’s get real. Dealing with sexual temptation is simply a part of who we are—because God has created us to be sexual beings. He made us as sexual creatures, and He wants us to enjoy that aspect of our identity. As with everything else God has created, He has a wonderful plan for that part of our lives. But are we going to follow His plan, as laid out in His Word—or are we going to walk in disobedience?

Remember, the path of obedience is always the path of God’s blessing. The path of obedience is always the path of God’s promotion. So if we want to fulfill His dream for our lives, we are going to have to bring this area under God’s control.

I believe God has shown me some keys that will help you understand how to pass this important test.

Impurity Begins in the Eye, Not in the Heart

Since lust is in the mind (or heart), it might be easy to assume that impurity begins in that area. But it doesn’t. Impurity actually begins in the eye. It begins with looking.

Notice that the Scripture passage says Potiphar’s wife “cast longing eyes on Joseph” (Gen. 39:7). The Bible tells us that Joseph was a handsome man (see v. 6), so I suppose it is only natural that she would notice that he was attractive. But at some point she began to not only notice Joseph, but also to “look” at him. After she started looking at Joseph, it was only a matter of time before looking turned into longing—or lust, to put it bluntly. When “noticing” turned into looking, that was when lust was stirred up. So the impurity began in her eyes, when she started to look at Joseph longingly.

Here is some advice that will go a long way toward steering clear of immorality: Don’t
look
at handsome or beautiful people! Don’t allow yourself to look or to continue looking—because if you allow yourself to continue to look, you are inviting lust into your life. Look away.

David’s sin of adultery began when he wandered out onto the roof and happened to see Bathsheba bathing (see 2 Sam. 11:2)—but how long did he look? Instead of looking, David could have turned and looked the other way. He could have walked back into his house and cried out to the Lord for help. But instead he continued to look—and lust was inevitably stirred up.

When I was a teenager, my youth pastor was trying to help us in this area, and he told us, “The second look is lust.” Unfortunately, that advice didn’t seem to help me very much—because I just took one very long first look!

When you think about it, Joseph probably had lots of opportunities to look, if he had wanted to. Joseph was the steward of the house, and he
had charge of everything in it. He probably knew when his master’s wife bathed and when she dressed—and she was most likely a beautiful woman. It wouldn’t have been difficult for Joseph to look when the occasion arose. But if Joseph had allowed himself to look, he would have given lust an opportunity to invade his heart—and he probably would have fallen into sin when the temptation came.