Run From Sin

Welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading, titled Run From Sin, was written by Dave Brannon. Twice this summer, I suffered the scourge of poison ivy. Both times it happened. I was working on clearing away unwanted plant growth from our yard. And both times, I saw the nasty three-leafed enemy lurking nearby. I figured I could get close to it without it affecting me.

Soon enough, I realized I'd been wrong. Instead of getting nearer to my little green nemesis, I should have run the other way. In the Old Testament story of Joseph, we see modeled the principle of running from something worse than poison ivy, sin. When he was living in the home of Egyptian official Potiphar, whose wife tried to seduce him, Joseph didn't try to get close. He ran.

Although she falsely accused him and had him thrown in prison, Joseph remained pure throughout the episode. And as we see in Genesis 39 21, the Lord was with him. God can help us flee activities and situations that could lead us away from Him, guiding us to run the other way when sin is nearby. In 2 Timothy 2 22, Paul writes, Flee the evil desires, and in 1 Corinthians 6 18 he says, to flee from sexual immorality. In God's strength, may we choose to run from those things that could harm us.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Genesis chapter 39 verses 11 through 23. One day he went into the house to attend to his duties, and none of the household servants was inside. She caught him by his cloak and said, Come to bed with me. But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and had run out of the house, she called her household servants.

Look, she said to them, This Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed. When he heard me scream for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house.

She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home. Then she told him this story. That Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me.

But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. When his master heard the story, his wife told him, saying, This is how your slave treated me. He burned with anger. Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined. But while Joseph was there in prison, the Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden. So the warden put Joseph in charge of all those held in the prison, and he was made responsible for all that was done there.

The warden paid no attention to anything under Joseph's care because the Lord was with Joseph and gave him success in whatever he did. Let's pray. God, you know all of our hearts and what we're getting too close to right now.

Help us to run from it and not look back. Give us the courage and wisdom to not let anything get between us. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Thanks for listening. I'm Stephen, and today's encouragement was provided by Our Daily Bread Ministries.