a. The Egyptians sell all to Joseph. In this middle section, we have the account of the last five years of the famine. As you read through this, you can sense the devastation of the land and the desperation of the people. Just like Joseph’s brothers, all of the people in the surrounding areas bought food with the money, or the gold and silver, that they had. When the people ran out of money, Joseph allowed the people to pay with their livestock. So the people brought all of their horses, flocks, herds, and donkeys and traded them for food. After that year of the famine ended, things had not gotten better and the people had nothing left to trade for food. The people asked to sell their land and to enter into slavery to pay for their food. Joseph agreed to pay with food in exchange for their land and their service. He gave them seeds for planting so that once the famine was gone the land would produce a harvest again and they would be saved. At the harvest times, the people would have to pay a fifth of the harvest to the Pharaoh, but the other four-fifths the people were able to keep for themselves. The people accepted the conditions that were given and they said, “You have saved our lives; may it please my lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh.” The people realized that they owed their lives to Joseph and his plan because apart from what he did they would have all died. They would serve the Pharaoh out of gratefulness and duty to the one who saved them. b. Jesus has saved our lives. We, as Christians, should have a similar mindset when it comes to our savior. The plan of Jesus has saved our lives. We must realize that we only live because of what he has done for us. Many people who claim to be Christians enjoy the idea that he is their savior. After all, who wouldn’t want someone to save them from their trouble? But the claim of a master is a different story. In our day of enlightenment, we have broken the shackles of master and slave. To even use such words offends many people’s ears. So, when people read in the Bible that we are slaves either to sin or to God they think the Bible should be done away with. But they don’t realize that their desire to do away with the Bible shows that their total oppression by sin and Satan is almost complete. It is only when we are slaves to God that we are free. To rebel against God plunges us deeper into a kind of slavery that we cannot escape ourselves, no matter what we do. We lose all sense of reality. Truth disappears and is replaced with individual desire. Objective morality is replaced with a paralyzing agnosticism toward right and wrong. Are rape, sex trafficking, and murder wrong? We don’t know. It could be but we just can’t say. God has given us his law. He states clearly what is right and what is wrong. The world knows what pleases him and what aligns with his character but they have rejected him. As born-again Christians, we know that every part of our lives is owed to Christ. We know that the more we relinquish control over our lives and give it to Jesus the happier our lives are.