And they said to him, “We each have had a dream, and there is no interpreter of it.”

So Joseph said to them, “Do not interpretations belong to God? Tell them to me, please.” Genesis 40:5-8

When we are learning about grace, the story of Joseph has so much to teach us. It is such an apt illustration of what life can be like if we live by the Spirit. If we live by the Spirit, our deeds will reflect that. If we live in grace, then we will live a righteous life. We don’t need the law to tell us what to do. In the Spirit-led life, we know what to do.

But how can I say we don’t need the law, when I’m a professional athlete? After all, if we didn’t have any rules in baseball, the game would be total chaos. It would also be boring! We need rules in all kinds of areas of life. Without the rules of the road, it would be too dangerous to go to work! There are rules everywhere, and we expect each other to play fair.

But there’s a difference between having rules and living a legalistic life. Our jobs, and the rules they entail, are a completely different issue than how we relate to people. Our relationships and our jobs are two different things. There are rules at work, and grace in relationship. I look at it this way. A person living in grace as Joseph did will say, “God will show me how to work to become successful.” Meanwhile, this is what legalism says. Legalism says, “I will work hard, so that God will see how hard I work and make me successful.”

Let that sink in for a moment. Which one are you?

For me, living in grace is to say, “Show me, God. Give me wisdom and show me where to work hard so that I can be successful.” And God says, “Well, okay. Here’s how you do it. Your job starts at nine. So the first little bit of wisdom? Be on time! That will create favor among your bosses.”

If your employer has told you to be at work at nine, then you have to be at work at nine. That’s all there is to it! The Bible says Potiphar loved Joseph and put him in charge of household operations. You can bet Joseph showed up on time!

I have a little more to say about this next time. See you Thursday.

Just look at what the story of Joseph can teach us. It’s such a good story! But it’s more than that. There is so much wisdom in it. There is so much to Joseph.

The story goes like this: Joseph’s brothers are jealous of him, so they sell him to some traders who take him to Egypt. In Egypt, Joseph is sold into the household of Potiphar, who managed the Pharaoh’s household. Potiphar was impressed with Joseph and put him in charge, and even grew very fond of him. But Potiphar’s wife wanted to seduce Joseph. Joseph refused her advances, so she framed him for attempted rape, and Potiphar threw Joseph in prison.

Like Abraham, Joseph lived in grace. It was before God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. It was before God gave us the law against adultery. Nevertheless, when Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him, Joseph said no. Potiphar’s wife said to him, “Sleep with me.” And Joseph said, “My master has been so good to me, and you’re his wife! How could I violate his trust and sin against God?”

You see, he didn’t need a commandment that would tell him what to do. Joseph knew right from wrong. Joseph said, “Wait a minute, I don’t want to sleep with this man’s wife.” Joseph called it a “sin against God” long before we had a commandment that said, “You should not do that.”

When the Bible talks about Joseph, it says, “The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.” (See for example Genesis 39:2.) The Lord wasn’t with him because of Joseph’s legalism. We didn’t have the law yet! Joseph did not do anything to merit God’s favor, but God was with him. So everything Joseph did succeeded. When Potiphar put him to work in his home, not only did Joseph succeed, but the whole house of Potiphar was blessed because Joseph was there.

Now you might object and say, “Sure, the Bible says Joseph was successful, but he was sold into slavery and then got thrown into prison for a crime he didn’t commit! Jeremy, you see goodness in this story?” Well, just look at God’s plan! Joseph resisted Potiphar’s wife and was thrown in prison, but he had to be in that exact prison for God’s plan for him to unfold. In that exact prison, he was again successful. The warden liked him so much that he put Joseph in charge of the whole operation.

And in that exact prison, Joseph met Pharaoh’s head baker, and Pharaoh’s cupbearer. His successful interpretation of their dreams led Joseph to Pharaoh. And when Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, he was put in control of the kingdom! So you see, when the Lord is with you, bad things are part of the good story that is unfolding. God is good, and good things are happening. There is a journey.

When the Bible talks about Joseph, it says, “The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man.” Now the Bible talks about us, and it says, “Because of grace, Jesus is in you and with you and through you.” In other words, just as the Lord was with Joseph, now He is with you. You have His free and unmerited favor. You don’t have to do anything. Live in grace. Let God bless you and work through you, and you will be successful in your journey!

I have more to say on this next time, so see you Monday.

I’m so thankful for this! Now I know what it’s like to lead my family as the head of the home. The head of the home does not say, “I’m the head, you’re the tail, do what I ask.” The head of the home says, “I’m going to serve you. I’m going to love on you. I’m going to take good care of you. I’m going to nurture you into becoming the fullness that you are asked to become.”

That’s what Jesus does for me. We naturally put ourselves under Him because we trust Him so much. Sinners followed Jesus. The Bible calls them sinners, but they were basically the people that were not following God. And they were the ones that put themselves under Jesus and said, “Lord, we’ll follow you.” Why? Jesus didn’t say, “Look people, I am the Messiah. I am the son of the Almighty God, so if you don’t act a certain way I’ll strike you down.” That was not His message! People followed Him because He nurtured them and loved them.

see more of Richard Gunther’s cartoons at http://mightymag.org

Now the church wonders why it’s losing people. Why don’t people want to follow Jesus? Why don’t people want to be in church? It’s because the church teaches grace, but expects legalism. The church says to people, “Jesus saved us by grace, so let’s live in joy and peace! BUT, you need to do this, and you need to do this, and you have to tithe this, and you have to give here, and you can’t do this, and by the way, you’re not allowed to drink in public.” And you’ve got rule, after rule, after rule.

But the Bible says, if you mix law and grace, your wineskin will break. It cannot hold up.

If you want to know why people don’t like Christianity, I’ll tell you. Jesus lived in grace and people loved Him. But we are living in legalism. We’re telling people what to do and not to do, and we’re making them feel bad about everything. We’re judging them if they don’t live a certain way. This is why we’re falling apart. We’re missing the whole point.

It’s so hard for us to not live in legalism, because we feel like we need boundaries. We feel like we need to have these laws so that we won’t go off course. Jesus took that away, though, so we don’t need to fear it.

See you Thursday.

I think Christian families are putting new wine in old wineskins. I think churches are doing it too. They’re pouring the new wine of grace into the old skins of legalism. They’re doing it because they want control. They want to control their congregations, or they want to control their wives and husbands and children, and so they use this legalistic approach.

But then they teach grace within it! Essentially they say, “Okay, if you stay under my rules, you will have grace. You will have freedom. But when you get outside of my rules, I will get angry. I’ll use anger to pull you back in and control you. I will drop the law on you.”

And now we have a conflict! I should know, since I’ve just been exposed to it. During the off-season, my wife said to me, “You know what? It seems like you treat baseball players with grace, and you treat us in law.” I asked her, “What do you mean?” And she said, “Well, when we don’t do what you want us to do, you get angry with us. You’re afraid that we won’t look right. We won’t look a certain way in other people’s eyes. You won’t look like you have a good family. But when a ballplayer messes up, you don’t even react to it. Instead you say they’re only human, so of course they’re going to mess up. For them, you decide to live in grace. You say you’re going to love them, because they won’t be able to see Jesus if you judge them. So you give them grace. But you judge us! We’re your family, and you judge us!”

I heard that, and it crushed me. It absolutely crushed me. My wife was right. She was so right! I was mixing grace and legalism in my life. And do you know what? My life was literally imploding.

I was frustrated and stressed at home, but I would get to the ballpark and feel no stress at all. At the ballpark, I was so relaxed. I felt free. I didn’t feel bound up. I didn’t feel frustrated or angry. It was so confusing. I couldn’t figure out why I felt so stressed at home and so relaxed at work. I was creating a terrible conflict for myself and my family. I was living in contradiction. I was living in legalism, in a mentality that I oppose, and I didn’t even know it!

This took me on my journey from legalism to grace. Now I go home and I’m so happy to be there. I’m so happy to be a family man. My kids are happy and we play. My wife is happy and confident. I was so attracted to my wife because of her confidence and her bold outspokenness, but she had grown reserved and hadn’t been confident. I couldn’t figure out why, but the reason was me. I was putting new wine in old skins. Now I’m seeing my wife thrive! I’m seeing my children thrive!

Now, man, my life is not just saved by grace. It’s based in grace! And I’m so excited to get home!

See you Monday.

We want so much to let our kids have emotions, but only when those emotions feel good to us. We don’t get mad at them for being happy. We don’t get mad at them for laughing. We don’t get mad at them for being joyful. We don’t even get mad at them when they’re sad and crying. But when they get angry, we get mad at them!

If you think about it, you’ll realize that this is backwards! How much sense does it make to tell them, “I’m going to get angry at you for being angry”? We don’t want our kids to be angry, but if they are, what do they see? They see us get angry! So they’re not learning anything. It’s a vicious cycle. I think it comes from trying to control them, to control their reactions so that we can control our own reactions. This is typical of legalism in the home.

When someone reacts in a way that you don’t like, it’s no reason to get angry. In fact, I think responding with anger is the worst thing you can possibly do. You can actually just accept them and be with them. You can acknowledge that there’s obviously something going on that you don’t know about, something that’s troubling them. Grace says, “How can I help you? How can I love on you? How can I make you feel better today? I can see that you’re having a bad day. How can I be here for you?”

When you do that for your child, then all of a sudden, a bad day can become a good day. Now you’re a loving help to them. Now, in their bad day, you’re not just someone else continuing to pound on them. You’re especially not a legalistic father who wants to drop a Bible verse on them when they’re not doing right!

I’m far from perfect, but I try not to get angry at my sons for getting angry at me. I let them be angry. And we talk about it.

If you don’t live the life of grace, you’re living the life of legalism. We have a lot of issues today in Christian homes. Christian families experience the same divorce rate as non-Christian families. I suspect legalism is the problem. If your family is not living in grace, then the mentality in your home isn’t any different than the mentality in a home not founded in God. And you’re going to get the same issues.

But when you live in a home founded in grace, your kids are happy, your husband or wife is truly happy, they are growing and thriving, and they live righteous and loving lives. People will look at your family and say, “Man! What are you doing? What rule did you make? What law did you give them, that they live so well?”

That’s not the right question, of course. When people don’t understand grace, they think about dropping a Bible verse and making a rule with it. But the point is that my family now loves and laughs and thrives because I didn’t give them a rule. I didn’t give them a law to live by. I gave my family freedom. My wife and I brought grace into our home. And we are happy.

See you Thursday.

In a Spirit-led life, our deeds are righteous. But they don’t belong to us. If I am a righteous man, it’s only because I have the blood of Jesus on me. If I live a righteous life and make right decisions, it will be because Jesus is in me and works through me. I can’t boast about that.

I can’t do this without Him.

As I wrote about last time, most people in the world have a control issue. We feel like we need to control things. We want people to react a certain way to us, just so that we can react a certain way back. If people don’t react the way we want them to, then we want to control the situation. Maybe we even want to control other people. And as we know, when we try to do that, things go wrong.

Well, I’ve just given that up. I’ve given my life up — to Jesus Christ. You have to, in order to live in grace. And you have to give up controlling your family so that they can live in grace with you. This is the basis for a true relationship with Jesus. The Bible says that we love Jesus because He first loved us. So I don’t go to my wife and children, and say, “Hey! You need to love me, and you need to respect me.” They will love and respect me when I first love and respect them.

If you try to control your family, they will fight you. If you only love them when they do certain things, or when they live a certain way, then you’ll have a battle on your hands. I think that is what was so hard for us before Jesus came. You see the battle in the Old Testament. We had to live a certain way and act a certain way. We had to follow the Ten Commandments. It was too hard, and we could never do it, so we always had to make sacrifices to make up for our transgressions.

I think there was a plan all along. God saw that we wanted rules. We sent Moses up to Mt. Sinai because we wanted rules. Rules cause problems, but we wanted them, so God gave them to us. Then we had the law, and we couldn’t follow it. We broke it all the time. So we had to make sacrifices in order to feel righteous before God. There were a lot of sacrifices!

So God sent His Son to make the ultimate sacrifice. And after that one perfect sacrifice, there was only one commandment. Love your neighbor as yourself, and love God.

But we can only fulfill that one commandment through the blood of Jesus Christ. So you see, you can’t boast about the good things you do. You can’t say, “Look at me! I did this, and I did that.” Jesus is the only reason that you can do the good things you do.

When you can give up legalism and give up your life to Jesus, then Jesus will live in you and through you. And then you will walk in grace. You won’t walk in condemnation. You won’t walk in judgmentalism. You won’t walk in expectation. You’ll just live your life in freedom, not bound by all those laws. You’ll be free to do the work God has prepared for you. You can truly love.

See you Monday.

Trying to control them is like pushing them down. They cannot grow if I’m pushing them down. And so I allow them to be free. They don’t have to worry that I’ll judge them. They don’t have to fear that I’ll get angry. There is so much freedom in grace! It is absolutely amazing to me.

And I realize this seems like a simple concept, but most of us deal with it on some level every day. It’s a part of life.

For example, how often do you come home and find out that your husband or your wife has disciplined the kids in a certain way, and you want to change the rules? You might have a completely different idea of how to discipline them when they talk back or hit their little brothers. Right? Well, I used to come home and change the rules. My attitude was, “Hey, I’m the dad here, so I should lead. It’s important that I lead.”

But I have come to realize something. The Bible says to love your wife as Christ loved the church, and it says the husband is the head of the family as Christ is the head of the church. It’s a funny thing, though, when I look at Jesus. I don’t see someone standing on a pedestal and dictating to the church. I don’t see that at all!

Jesus led by becoming a servant. He served us, and He loved us, and He died for us. He served us, and we responded by putting ourselves under Him. We naturally made Him the leader, because of how He served us, His family. So when you go to your family and say, “Listen up! I’m the head of the family, and you will do what I say,” then you put your family under you. That’s legalism. Do that to your family, and you will get resistance. They will shut you down, and they will quit listening to you. They will rebel against you, because you forced them under you. You’ll be out in the emotional cold.

But if you love your family, and serve them as Jesus served us, then they will naturally put themselves under you. They’ll draw near to you and trust you to lead them. They will trust you because you love them in grace, and you love them with understanding.

I don’t want to be in control of everything. It stresses me out. It stressed me out for years trying to control everything, trying to make my family be a certain way, and act a certain way. I no longer tell my family, “I’m the head of the family, so do what I say.”

Instead, I co-lead. I am not the only leader of the family. My wife and I are co-leaders, as Eve and Adam were intended to be, and as Paul reminded the Ephesians. So we co-lead in grace. Now if she needs me, my first question is, “How can I help?” I ask, “How can I be available? What can I do?” I’m not here to judge her, or to tell her how I would do things, or to tell her to act this way or that way. I just ask, “How can I be of help?”

And since my wife doesn’t feel judged, she can tell me. She can express herself to me, and I can just love on her. And man, it is amazing how free and happy my wife is. And my kids, same thing, they’re just happy. We’re growing. In the end, your family will look to you to lead. When as men we learn to lead from the attitude of servant leadership not dictatorship.

More on grace next time. See you Thursday.

There are ways to teach our children about this. How often do we meet resistance when we say, “Clean your room!” When I tell my son that he has to do something, the resistance can be incredible. There might be yelling, and jumping and stomping of feet. Doors might be slammed.

But what if I can look at him and say, “Hey bud, you know what? It’s your call.” What if I take my own son’s freedom into account? When I do, it is amazing. No one gets angry! I don’t yell at him and he doesn’t yell at me. If you can allow your children to make their own decisions, then you may not meet quite so much resistance.

I have learned to talk with my son, instead of making demands. I tell him, “You need to clean your room, because Mama has asked you to clean your room. I’m just letting you know that you can make your own call here. There are two roads you can take, and you’re the one who has to choose. If you take the wrong road, there will be consequences, but we’ll deal with them together. I’m going to help you, and I’m still going to love you. So it’s your call.”

So when it comes to doing his chores, my son knows it’s his choice. And I also tell him, “You can be angry. It’s okay to be angry. I’m not going to force you to clean your room. We’re living in grace here. I’m not going to tell you what you have to do. I’m going to help you understand what you should do. And then after that, it’s your call. If you make the wrong choice, we’ll handle it as we need to, in love. It’s up to you.” And then I just look at him, and he looks at me, and then he says, “Okay, I’ll clean my room.” And he does. He cleans his room and we go on with our day.

I’ve had to learn that my way of making decisions is not necessarily my son’s way of making decisions. My boys don’t have the same personality as mine. God has given each of them their own personalities. It’s tough to learn the personalities of your children and live in grace. It’s a challenge, but when we can do it, there’s freedom. There’s freedom in being able to allow our children to work in grace. There’s freedom in saying, “Hey, look, this is going to be better for you if you choose to do it, but it is your choice.”

I think God teaches us the same way. We have the freedom to choose between right and wrong, and when we choose wrong, there are consequences. But there is no condemnation. We’re living in grace here. God has brought us into His family, and He will help us deal with the consequences, in love. I’m going to love my son just as much if he doesn’t clean his room, even though my wife and I will discipline him. I will never love my son less. How much more does God love us?

More yet to come on grace.  See you Monday.

If you live a Spirit-led life, you will naturally do the right thing, and you will enjoy the fulfillment that comes with that. You won’t have to live by the law. You won’t have to live by dos and don’ts. You’ll never say, “I won’t steal, because the Ten Commandments tell me not to.” Instead, the Spirit of God, living in you, is going to speak to you and say, “Don’t steal, because that is not right. Not in a pure life with me.”

This is one of the foremost themes in Paul’s epistles. His letters are genius! In both Romans and Galatians, he tells the churches, “If you’re going to live by the law, you need to obey the law. Good luck with that!”

And if you think that’s impossible, the corollary is even worse. If you’re going to obey the law, then you have to live by the law. Think about that for a minute. It’s really an impossible thing to do. It’s hard enough to obey the law, but you’re doomed if you insist on living by it. Do you think it’s hard to avoid checking out your neighbor’s shiny red sports car? The law says you can’t covet, but our flesh is sinful! Now, if you think that’s hard, try to avoid even thinking about looking at it! That’s what it takes to live by the law.

Christian legalism reads Paul’s message backwards.

To live by the law is to live in condemnation. Legalism is a miserable place to be. Live in grace.

Those who live in grace, Paul says, will have freedom. Those who live in grace just take what’s dealt, and they deal with it. They don’t have to live in a world boxed up by rules, where bad things happen when the rules get broken.

Think about tithing. If you give because you have to, it becomes a burden. You’re not going to be a cheerful giver. But in the life of grace, there is no rule about tithing. In the Spirit-led life of grace, the Spirit says to you, “Hey, be a cheerful giver.” That’s all it says. You don’t see the word “tithe” in the New Testament, because in the new covenant, there is no such thing as tithing.

Are you going to want to tithe? Are you going to want to give? Yes! I truly believe you will. You’re going to understand how things work, and you’re going to want to help support those things that are good. You will want to help support your church. You will want to help people in the ministry, or help people who are in poverty. You’ll start to feel like this is a part of life. That righteous life will be inside of you, the Spirit at work.

If your church preaches that you have to tithe, you might not feel much enthusiasm for it. But if someone says, “Hey man, be a cheerful giver, whatever you feel like you should give,” then all of a sudden you’ll find yourself wanting to give more. It’s good to be able to do something because you want to do it, not because you have to do it. It’s very freeing!

But is this true when it comes to chores? What if you don’t want to clean your room? More on this next time. See you Thursday.

It causes problems in a lot of marriages. I’ve been there, but I no longer try to control my wife or my children. If you try to control your wife, then things will get bad for your family. I’ve seen men, including myself, say to their wives, “You know what, as long as you live the way I say to live, then everything’s okay. But if you don’t, then I’m going to get angry, and basically, you’re not going to like it when I’m angry.” And when men start controlling, it gets really bad. Then you’ve got your family living at the address of misery.

What good is this? How does your family feel when you tell them that they can only make you happy if they live up to your standards? It’s an impossible situation! You’ll only make your family miserable.

It’s the same with any other relationship. Your friends don’t like you when you tell them they have to do what you say, right?

Grace allows us to be free. Grace allows us to liberate each other. When I go home at the end of the day, I am not living in expectation. I don’t have to stake my happiness on what my wife is or isn’t doing. I don’t go home thinking, “Great, unless my wife is doing what I want her to do, then I’m going to be miserable.” And I’m not making her worried or anxious. She isn’t wondering what to do or how to make me happy. When I get home, I assess the situation, and then I say, “Okay! How can I help?”

And when my wife has an opinion, I listen to it. When she wants to do something, I don’t try to stop her. I help her. I don’t feel compelled to say, “No, that’s not how I’d do it.” If she wants to do something a certain way, then that’s her call to make. She’s her own person, and that’s great!

Truly living in grace is an amazing experience. I feel so free, living without expectation of how things have to be. And I love living in a grace-based relationship. I don’t have to demand that my wife or my children live a certain way. I don’t want to control their demeanor, or control everything they do! God made everyone to be different. God gave us all different personalities. And if this is what God has done, then this is a good thing. Why would I try to control what God has made, or change what God has given?

When you have Christ in you, and He works through you, and you live in that grace, then you already live in a fulfilled law. You don’t have to focus on the dos and don’ts. Now, it’s all about righteousness.

More on grace next time. See you Monday.