Credentials

Genesis 41:15 And pharaoh said to Joseph, " I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. I have heard it said of you that when you hear a dream you can interpret it. 16 Joseph answered Pharaoh, "It is not in me; God will give pharaoh a favorable answer"

We live in a society that is all about building a resume and gathering successful credentials. Whether it is the burning passion for kids to be the best at their activities, the brand name of the clothes we wear, or our street address and the status label it gives us we are all pretty good at puffing ourselves up in the eyes of others. We are masters of evaluation and separation of people based on performance and rewarding those who do best when it counts. Since our society seems to revolve around that axis, it seems that there is an unspoken rule of aggregating the things that we all do well and keep a running list of credentials that validate our employment, activities, roles and selves. When needed we can break this list out and tell the world how worthy we are to accomplish whatever it is that is being asked of us.

Contrast Joseph, a great man of faith, with our culture. In Genesis 41 above he is having a conversation with the most influential figure in the World at that time, Pharaoh. Pharaoh addresses Joseph as the interpreter of dreams and asks Joseph to clarify what his dreams mean. So at the time when Joseph can bring glory to himself and say "Why,yes, pharaoh I am the dream machine and I can indeed help you", he elects to do otherwise. His words are "it is not in me". Joseph is saying, "I can not do it". He then follows it up with " God will give pharaoh a favorable answer." He is simply being honest. It is when we are at this point in our ministries that we can be effective for Christ. If you take time to go through Hebrews chapter 11 and examine the lives of the faithful men and women listed there you will find that they all came to the ends of themselves before they were used in effective ministry. No one in Hebrews 11 believes that it is half God and half them, they have met Him and seems themselves clearly and therefore no better. This is the same as PAul in the New Testament saying , "I am chief among sinners".

In a day when we are productive achievers and believe deeply in our abilities to accomplish much, we must not ignore this biblical truth. We will be tempted at every turn to believe that we are essential, when we are not. God alone is essential and if the Devil can convince us that we are then he has us exactly where he wants us, imitating Him. We don't want others to assign worth to us, we want them to give glory and praise to Christ alone.

It is where we end and Christ begins that our faith becomes real and advances His Kingdom.