What is the FIDO Principle

Happy Sunday. Have you ever heard of C mlar? You can find him on his website, C mlar decom. You can watch his testimony on YouTube. He's one of the best speakers I've ever heard.

CLE was wounded in Vietnam in March of 1968. He spent the next two years in military hospitals. He had dozens of surgeries and countless days of physical therapy. For his service and bravery, he was awarded three Purple Hearts, the Silver Star, and the Bronze Star.

CLE talks about the phto principle and has spent his life doing that. It is life-changing. The pH phto principle is an acronym for "forget it and drive on." C says that after his injuries he had a choice: he could be handcuffed to that event, or he could move on. He has moved on, and his testimony has changed many, many lives.

Have you ever known someone that was so anchored to their past that it ruined their present and their future? Over the years, I've even run into people who truly believe that God couldn't use them because of some past event in their lives. In Philippians 3:13, in the second part of this verse, Paul shares with us the phto principle. Do you remember these words? Paul said, "One thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead."

Paul really had to live the phto principle. He had quite the past. He was really a bounty hunter after Christians. After his conversion, he became the greatest missionary this world has ever known.

Today I'm not going to focus on Paul. I'm going to focus on the Old Testament story of Joseph. Do you remember Joseph? Life unfolds in the Book of Genesis. Joseph was the 11th son of Jacob, 10 older brothers and one younger.

If you want to study some amazing history, look at the life of Jacob and his sons. God changed Jacob's name to Israel, and from Jacob and his offspring come the 12 tribes of Israel. Back to Joseph. Joseph was the favorite Child. Everybody knew it, and his 10 older brothers hated him.

In Genesis 373, we're told that Jacob loved Joseph more than all of his children. You likely remember that his father gave him a coat of many colors. It was like a neon sign to his brothers flashing, "Daddy loves me best, daddy loves me best," and they couldn't stand him.

We're told that Joseph was a dreamer, and let me share with you a couple of his Dreams. They're found in Genesis 37, verses 5 to8, and then verse 9. We're told there, "One night Joseph had a dream, and when he told his brothers about it, they hated him more than ever. 'Listen to this dream,' he said. 'We were out in the field tying up bundles of grain, and suddenly my bundle stood up, and your bundles all gathered around and bowed low before mine.' His brothers responded, 'So you think you'll be our King, do you? Do you actually think you'll Reign Over Us?' And they hated him all the more because of his dreams and the way he talked about them."

Well, he had another dream. In verse n says he talked about it too soon: "Joseph had another dream, and again he told his brothers about it. 'Listen, I've had another dream,' he said. 'The sun, moon, and 11 Stars bowed low before me.'" It didn't go over well.

Joseph was 17 years old when his brothers decided to rid themselves of the favorite. They saw a caravan headed to Egypt, so they sold their brother into slavery for 20 pieces of silver. To cover their crime, they took his coat and smeared it with animal blood, and they took it home to their father and told him that Joseph must have been attacked by an animal.

In Egypt, Joseph was sold to a man named potier. Piper was a high ranking official of pharaoh. Joseph made the best of a bad situation. He was a good slave, and he became his master's right-hand man.

Scripture tells us that Joseph was a handsome man, and Piper's wife noticed that Joseph was a handsome man, and she tried to seduce him on many occasions. Joseph resisted her advances, and it made her so mad that she made up a story and told her husband that Joseph tried to rape her. Pipar was Furious, and he had Joseph thrown into prison.

Joseph had a tough life thus far, hadn't he? Hated by his brother, sold into slavery, falsely accused, now in prison. You may wonder what God was up to. We on occasion ask God the question, why? What are you up to? What was Joseph's relationship with God like now, after all this trouble? His life had not worked out like he had planned.

Let me read to you the last verses of Genesis chapter 39. There in prison we're said, "But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love, and the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison Warden. Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison. The warden had no more worries, because Joseph took care of everything. The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed."

I love the way verse 21 puts it: "But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love." God sure can show off, even in our toughest seasons. Back to the phto principal. Did Joseph live by the phto principal? Well, I hope you join me next week as I tell you the rest of the story.

Pray with me. Lord, thank you for Cay McClary and his ministry. Thank you for your word and the examples that we find in it. And this week and next, we pray that we learn from the life of Joseph. Father, whatever those things are that hold us back, we pray that we let you help us to forget those things and to drive on. In the name of Jesus I pray, amen.

God bless. Thanks for joining me today.