Genesis 41:42-57 “All Things New”

“Joseph named his second son Ephraim, for he said, ‘God has made me fruitful in this land of my grief.’”
Genesis 41:52 (NLT)

Now that Joseph was prime minister in Egypt it was a whole new life. God caused him to forget his years of pain and sorrow. He was honored, married and fruitful in the land of Egypt. With such prosperity he could have forgotten his roots and been absorbed into the Egyptian culture.

We have all heard of “identity theft”. In this technological age where so much information about you is on the internet, some people pretend to be other people and steal their identity. In a different way, I’ve seen believers lose their identity in Christ. Perhaps they’ve grown up in church, but as they associate with others who have a different world view they forget who they are. Their identity is stolen, not by a computer hacker, but by the devil who deceives them.

Joseph is a great example of someone who kept his identity even though he prospered in a strange place. He forgot the pain of being sold by his brothers as a slave, but he didn’t forget that he was a son of Israel. His God was not the Egyptian sun-god but Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We live among people who have a different world view and who live in darkness. The world exerts great pressure on the Christian to conform, but we must remember who we are in Christ. We have been called out of this world to serve a different king with different laws. Don’t let anyone steal your identity or intimidate you into silence. Rather, abide in Christ and bear much fruit in the land!