Acts 7:1-51 / 17-10 – As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt had greatly increased. 18 Then ‘a new king, to whom Joseph meant nothing, came to power in Egypt.’ 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our ancestors by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.
Family, we know that God continuously and always is blessing us. Even when we are going through the toughest trials God is with us, loving us and blessing us. God is good all the time and all the time He is good. God is faithful even if we have not been faithful. He decided to love us and He will love us to the day we die and for those who love Him, we will be loved by Him in His presence for eternity. God had made a promise to Abraham, he had told him “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” (Genesis 15:1) Family, even to Adam and Eve, who ruled the world before the fall, the world and the things of it have never been our precious and high reward. It has never, not ever, been that way. The great promise of God is that He would love us and care for us and complete us as only He can. We greatly err when we think that the beauty of the earth, and of the things in it, including us, are our reward. No, many things in the earth God can bless us with but the true and highest reward that God has given us is Himself. That is why nothing else can complete us, can satisfy us, can bring us the joy and peace that God brings because we were created to have deep fellowship with God.
King David wrote “…The LORD is my light and salvation-whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life-of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). What can man take away from us? Our income, our homes, our friends, our loved ones? Yes, all this can happen but it is not the determination of man. All is in God’s control. The question is whether or not God is our greatest treasure. Some may say “As long as I have my dear spouse, though I have nothing else, I will be happy.” However, although we may love our spouse more than our own life, we have no control over how many years we will have our spouse with us. If the spouse is our highest love, and then dies, then what? Do we become a lost and hurt soul that no longer knows its purpose? Do we become a soul that has lost all purpose for life? No, we hurt at the loss but we are thankful that the greatest love of our life, God Almighty, is with us and we can never be separated from Him because He has said so! We walk by faith and not by sight! (2 Corinthians 5:7) We know He is with us because He has said so (Matthew 28:20, Deuteronomy 31:6, Hebrews 13:5). Yet, it is deeper than that. We should know “His voice.” (John 10:27) We should have a relationship with God and we should be aware of His loving hand upon us. God wants us to know of His love by His Word and also by the experience of walking in His love. Whatever may come, we are not broken because He is with us.
In the midst of the hardest trials He is with us and can prosper us. While living in Egypt He kept His promise to Israel and continued to prosper and grow Abraham’s descendants. Even being slaves under cruel men, nothing could prevent God from growing and blessing Israel, and in the right time, delivering the Jews from their now cruel captors. Family, no one can take from us what God promises us and the highest promise we have is that through Jesus Christ we will forever be loved and protected by God, and because of Jesus we will one day be forever with Him (John 14:2)
A people, or a person, may find favor in man, but that is a blessing from God and only He is the originator of the blessing. We are grateful for the kindness of others but God is the originator of all blessings (James 1:17). Thank people for kindness, but know that the greatest gratitude belongs to God.
Family, let us be wise and see without sentimentality the situation that surrounds us. Let us accurately assess the times we live in. We believers have been blessed in this land, but now the generation that we live in has forgotten the blessings that God has given this land through His people. That the rights and freedoms came not through ungodly men but through people who loved and sought after God. This generation has grown to hate our God and so hate us. The rulers of this land espouse evil beliefs. Some have stated that children belong to the government and not to the parents. That children are given to the parents to raise at the blessing of the government. Now men moved by evil are increasingly demanding the death of babies. Sound familiar? Yes, we are following the same pattern as Egypt. The new leaders don’t know, they don’t believe in the greatness of God. Many new leaders have no regard for God or His people. In fact, many despise God’s people. A famous quote by writer and philosopher George Santayana is “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Egypt and its leaders paid a big price for forgetting how blessing came to their land. God blessed their land through Joseph. God blessed our land because of His children and how He would use them to bless others. In the past, like Pharaoh of Egypt, our leaders understood that it was God and not man or anything else that blessed our land. Now our leaders do not acknowledge God, the one True God, and they even insist and demand on the right to kill children, just like Egypt. Family, pray for our nation. Let us not battle against flesh and blood but against powers and principalities (Ephesians 6:12). Let us pray for the will of God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit to rule in this land. Let us love and pray for souls to be saved. In this is the hope for our land and so much more. Such favor only comes from God. Moses was a type of Jesus as God used him to deliver the Jews. Jesus delivered all mankind. Jesus is coming back and will deliver again, let’s pray that all of us, throughout our lands, shall be faithful and looking for His return. Woe to those who are not. God is good and He is our hope. Praise our good, righteous, and loving God who keeps us unto that day. Praise God! Praise God every day and every way! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Isaiah 53:5 – But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.
Philippians 2:6-8 – Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; 7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!
Jesus died for me. Because I was, and am, a sinner who could not and cannot stop sinning in some way, much too often. I was helpless and hopeless to live out a sinless life, which is God’s standard. Why this perfection? Because it is how He made us. Because He made us to be like Him. He didn’t make us corrupt. He loved us enough to give us a free will. What did we do with it, we sinned like a child who, knowing it wrong, steals candy and then goes in the corner of a bedroom to hide from being found, from being found out. We might protest that a child stealing candy is not such an awful thing, it is what kids do. Right, kids who are born with a sin nature (that would be all of us) and that would be every person not created, it is how we all are born. So a child stealing candy is not a good thing and we will teach the child not to steal, but it is, to us, not a big thing. But we only think that it is not a “big thing” because we compare that to all the sins of the world. It certainly is not a big thing when we consider all of our own sins. But we are not God. God made us like Himself, sinless. Only God knows the beauty that Adam and Ever were in their sinless nature. After they sinned, they saw the difference in each other. They tried to cover up the change. Before they were beautiful and sinless and now they were not. God’s beautiful children were now marred. God mourned the marring that sin did to His children and Adam and Eve remembered until the day they died the beauty of the innocence they once had, but then had lost due to their own fault. There is no doubt that they regretted it every day of their lives. Adam and Eve knew the beauty of what God created us to be. Adam and Eve had to see they disease of sin in their all their babies and descendants, and they lived long lives and saw many descendants as Adam lived to be nine hundred thirty years old (Genesis 5:5). Sin is ugly. Sin is destructive. Sin hurts. Sin kills.
So all of us have the stain of sin upon us (Romans 3:10). None of us are the sinless souls that God created mankind to be (Romans 3:23). Yes, a small child’s sin of stealing candy is small to us because it is small compared to all our own sins. Yet we must remember that God is sinless. Remember that the Lord calls us to be sinless and yet none of us are. Next to God, any sin on our soul is a very ugly thing. We don’t truly know what a sinless soul in a man looks like, but God does. The state of true peace and happiness comes with a complete and perfect union with God and that state does not happen with sin in our lives. And that, Beloved, is why Jesus willingly stepped down from His throne, emptied Himself of the power of His divinity to live as a man. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin (Hebrews 9:22). The shedding of blood of an innocent animal cannot pay the full price of our sin. Jesus was the final and all-cleansing sacrifice. We either come in by Him or not at all. Now, Jesus the only way and no other sacrifice remains (John 14:6, Hebrews 10:26). God sacrificing Himself in the form of a man is the only sacrifice so eternally and infinitely valuable that the putrid sin of man can be ripped from the soul of a person so as to set them free to be what they were intended to be, pure and shining. Only the sacrifice of God Himself in the form of a man, with all of God’s love on full display (John 3:16), could pay the price.
Jesus did that. He knew what He was stepping into. He did it because God loves us. He stepped down to be hated, cursed at, tortured and murdered and He did it for us. Only the innocent blood of Jesus, who was both God and man, could pay the price for our sins. That is what Jesus did. The Good News for all of us is that His sacrifice was so powerful, so eternal, and that the benefits extend to us and all people who are ever born, from every nation, starting with the Jew and then to the world. Yes, Jesus did that!. Praise the Lord! Praise God! Oh praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Acts 7:1-51 / 14-16 – “After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy-five in all. 15 Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our ancestors died. 16 Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.”
Why did God the Father, who has every day been rejected and rebelled against by man, then send His Son to die for these disrespectful and filthy creatures? Why would beautiful perfection be sent to die for such as us? Because He could. Because that was His the desire of His will and His heart. God offered a way for man to be saved because of who He is. He could have wiped all mankind out and started over again. For Him that would have been as simple as thinking it and willing it to be so. But instead He loved mankind so greatly that He sent His Son, He Himself suffered and died so that we might be reunited with Him, so that we would have eternal life. Amazing!
Joseph, when He was blessed, could have remembered all the horror that He went through because of His brothers and decided to not help them, or even to have them killed. Instead he decided to provide for and protect his family. Joseph did not have a heart for revenge but to bless, just as His Lord, had forgiven, provided for and protected Him.
Sometimes Joseph is portrayed as a spoiled and privileged brat who flaunted the dreams God gave him and the coat that his father had given him, at his brothers. That he had provoked his brothers to become jealous and enraged. That seems more like a projection of those who can’t imagine that Josephs actions were from innocence rather that intentional provocation. It seems more likely that He was excited by all that he had been told and given. More like the joy of a child who received gifts that were so joyous to him that he wanted to show everyone how he had been blessed. It was innocence and not pride that caused Joseph to gleefully share his blessings. A pure heart wants to share good news and expects that all his family and friends will be happy for him. There was a pure heart there. The proof of his pure heart was his willingness to, when he had become second in command to Pharaoh, bless and not punish his brothers. His love for them remained and it was manifested by his forgiveness of them and his earnest desire to bless them. Through hard times his good heart had softened and not hardened.
A heart that belongs to God becomes like the heart of God. A heart that has been given to God is nurtured to become like His own heart. A heart that loves and belongs to God cannot be changed by trials, no matter how difficult. Instead a heart that belongs to God grows more tender, more loving, more like God’s heart in spite of hardships. It sees the love of God shining through the dark moments. Such a heart looks to the light and does not hope to peer in the darkness. We are told that a heart that belongs to God, and increasingly becomes more like God’s heart is patient and kind, it does not envy and does not boast, it is not proud and does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. A heart in pursuit of God does not fail just as God’s heart never fails. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a) Galatians 5:22 states that the one who has a spirit like God, that one in whom the Holy Spirit dwells, will from the Holy Spirit bear fruits of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. A heart that only has eyes for God will not become corrupted and hard but will increasingly become like God in whom its gaze belongs.
Joseph lived out the good heart that is in him. He did not make excuses to not live out the heart that God had given him, but instead, he kept his focus on God and so, more and more, became like God. God loves, forgives and forgets. We are blessed, like Joseph, if we do likewise. Praises to our God, our Savior and Lord! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Acts 7:1-51 / 11-13 – “Then a famine struck all Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our ancestors could not find food.12 When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our forefathers on their first visit. 13 On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family.”
There were four hundred years of silence in which the Lord did not speak to Israel. They had become rebellious and hard hearted. They would not listen to God and they did not obey Him. So God stopped speaking to them. Although many died early and some lived long lives, the average lifespan at the time of Jesus was about fifty-five years. That means that although Israel were certainly the receivers and protectors of the words of God to man, there were about seven generations of Israel that did not have a prophet of God speaking a message from God to them. It was a very sad time in the history of Israel. Israel had a famine from the blessing of hearing from God. The last word of God in the Old Testament is Malachi 4:5-6 “See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. 6 He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” It spoke of a coming Elijah-like prophet that would come before the great and dreadful day of the Lord (The Great Tribulation). God was silent to Israel for four hundred year and then John the Baptist came on the scene. Jesus said of John the Baptist (who the last Old Testament Prophet) “Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” He meant that of all the heroes of Israel, John the Baptist was the greatest one of all. John was the “greatest” because he had the high privilege of preparing the way for the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah to Israel and the world. So the last word from Malachi was predicting the coming of the prophet to prepare the world for Jesus and John the Baptist was the fulfillment of the prophecy.
The Lord uniquely positioned Joseph to be type of savior for Abrahams’s descendants. Joseph was a type of the coming Savior Jesus. God used Joseph to bring God’s provision for life to the Jews. God the Father used Jesus to bring eternal life for all who would come to Him. Joseph came for the physical famine, Jesus came to end the spiritual famine. Stephen states that by their best efforts their ancestors could not find food. This was just as we cannot find spiritual sustenance to restore our spiritual lives except through the God provided Savior to the Jew and to all the world, Jesus Christ.
We see that the first time that Jacob’s sons came to get food from Egypt they did not recognize the one whom God provided to save them as their very own brother. They also did not recognize Jesus as their Savior when Jesus first came to the world. It was at the second visit that Joseph was revealed to them who He was. It was then that the brothers, who had carried the heavy burden of having sold Joseph, received full forgiveness and blessings. The Jews also did not recognize Jesus as their Messiah at His first coming. But it will be just before His second coming that they will realize that they had rejected their Messiah. They will repent and as Joseph forgave his brothers and welcomed them back with open arms, so will Jesus forgive Israel and welcome his family with open arms.
Family, we can be grateful that Jesus gives us second chances. In fact, at any time in our lives before our natural death, Jesus extends His love and will to us that we might receive full forgiveness and the full benefits of being a child of God. I had many opportunities to come to Jesus before I did and, when I finally did respond to His call, I found Him waiting with open arms to receive me. So have we all who love Jesus had the same experience. If anyone does not know with absolute certainty that when they die they will go to Heaven, it is never, before natural death, too late. And for those who are called by His name, remember that Christ died for all the sins we will ever do. Jesus died because God loves us (John 3:16). Let’s walk in God’s forgiveness and share with others that God’s forgiveness is for all who will receive Jesus as their Savior and Lord. Praise our good and loving God! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Acts 7:1-51 / 10 – and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
Hebrews 13:8 – Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
It would seem appropriate to write that good times come and go. Yet although that would seem to be obviously true there is another statement that must first be considered “Who are we to say what is good or what is bad?” It would seem obvious to state that the “loss” of a loved one is bad. Yet that is not a blanket truth. Sometimes, even those who loved the one who passed on, will admit that it was time and now they are resting, or out of pain and with the Lord. Sometimes we get it. How about the other times when it does not seem so obvious to us?
Do we believe God is in control? If one truly believes that then does one also believe that God is good all the time and that He truly loves us? If we believe, truly believe, this basic truth about God and if we believe that God is in control, do we then struggle with rectifying something seemingly horrific? Maybe we ought not to question the goodness and love of God but instead remember a basic truth and ask a different question.
The truth to consider is that God did not bring sin into this world. Man brought sin into this world (Adam and Eve). The original sin progressed to the fullness of sin we now have and will continue to descend until Jesus comes back. Also, we remember that Adam and Eve were given rule over all of creation and when Adam and Eve fell, so did all of their creation. So even tragic natural disasters can be traced back to the sin of our ancestors Adam and Eve. So whether it is the evil that man can do, the diseases that plague mankind, or the natural disasters that can kill, all of it is traceable to original sin, to man himself.
The question is not whether God allowed evil things to happen to us, but whether or not what happened was evil or good. Are we qualified to declare what is evil? Certainly we can see the clearly biblical acts of evil. We can say that evil definitely happens. But does evil then have the victory? Did the devil score one for the bad side? Or does God still have the final victory? Can anyone of us know all possible reasons for a death or does only God know all? If I should die and someone should then consider their own mortality and come to know Jesus as their Savior and Lord, is that a bad thing or a good thing? If a child should go to be brought home to heaven, and again someone considers their own mortality and comes to be rescued by Jesus, is that a bad or a good thing? Both the child and the person who came to Jesus are in heaven, where there is no pain or suffering, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Surely the child with Jesus, if we think honestly and beyond emotion, and the one who came to Jesus are both better off. The point is, God knows all things and we do not. So who are we to accuse God of being bad because of some tragedy? He did not bring disasters to this world, but man did. He did not bring death to this world, but man did. And “natural disasters” were not brought to this world by God but by man. None of these things had to be if man would not have betrayed God. So the question is not how could a good and loving God bring the disaster, but rather why doesn’t all of mankind yield and repent to God so that all these type of things stop happening.
Surely people would say that what happened to Joseph was evil. What his brothers did to him was evil. But ultimately, while not excusing the bad the brothers did, God turned what they did to be bring ultimate good to Joseph and his people. As Joseph would say to his brothers “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” (Genesis 50:20) God always wins and so that means that ultimately, we always win! Praise God!
Family, God is good all the time and He loves us. Let that be the great truth we know and let us not allow any event in life, ours or others, challenge that fact. Let us trust God and know that even in great evil God will have the final victory. We just don’t understand or know everything, but He does. Rather than challenge God, let’s continue to steadfastly and unshakably cling to our sure knowledge of Him. Knowing and having God fully is knowing and having peace fully! All praise and honor to our good and loving God! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Psalm 130 – Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord; 2 Lord, hear my voice. Let Your ears be attentive to my cry for mercy. 3 If You, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand? 4 But with You there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve You. 5 I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope. 6 I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning. 7 Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption. 8 He Himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.
“Out of the depths I cry to You, Lord!”
When I ask for forgiveness I find that it has been prepared and waiting for me before all of creation. Because of Your love for me You are always listening for me!
“If You, Lord, kept a record of sins, Lord, who could stand?”
If You Lord did not cast the memory of our sins from You then no-one could even approach you to repent, and certainly all would perish.
“But with You there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve You.”
But within Your loving grace, by the force of Your will, my sins are vanquished from Your memory. Because of who You are I can, in respect and with great reverence and love, serve You.
“I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His word I put my hope.”
In the morning when my eyes open, all that I am first looks for Your beauty to trust in. Your Word, revealed to me by Your Spirit, is the storage room for all my hope.
“I wait for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning, more than watchmen wait for the morning!”
More sure than the arrival of morning I know that Your love and protection are with me every day. More sure than the morning is Your love and protection! It is You I long and wait for!
“Israel, put your hope in the Lord, for with the Lord is unfailing love and with Him is full redemption.”
Christian, we put our love, our confident hope, in the Lord. For His love never fails and at every step we walk into the new and fresh beauty that it is. His love is not an incomplete love but is complete, and those who walk in it find that freedom flows from it.
“He Himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”
God Himself is our Helper and Savior and not is anyone or anything else. Always, without exception, He alone is our Rescuer! Though our sins are a free flowing fountain, greater are the depths of the pit that the Lord casts them, not us, into! Thank you Lord Jesus! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Acts 7:1-51 / 8b-9 Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs. “Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt. But God was with him10 and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh king of Egypt. So Pharaoh made him ruler over Egypt and all his palace.
“Later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the twelve patriarchs.” God is faithful. When it was beyond worldly belief, God kept His promises to Abraham. After his father died and Abraham left Harran he was seventy-five years old. There are not many seventy-five years olds fathering children. Still, Abraham faithfully believed God would keep His promise and so he did not quit at Harran but continued on to receive the promises of God. Even though many believe that Abraham should not have stopped in Harran to bury his father (perhaps [squeezed] from Matthew 8:21-22), still Abraham showed continued faith that God would do what He had promised. Family, God is faithful even when we are weak (2 Timothy 2:13) because if we understand who God is, His righteousness, goodness and justness, we know that God cannot be anything but faithful. If God were to be unfaithful He would be turning, He would be changing from who He is. But we know that God does not change (Malachi 3:6). If God ever changed than He would not be the God whom we know Him to be. God changing would be a great cause for fear because that would mean that if He changed in any way that He might change in every way and that would include being the loving, merciful and gracious God that He is. No, God does not change and part of what we draw from that is that He is always faithful to what He promises. If God promised it then He will do it. Without exception. Every single time. So Abraham did father Isaac at the seemingly impossible age of one hundred years and Sarah did give birth to Isaac when she was ninety years old. Impossible? Nothing is impossible with God (Luke 1:37). God is faithful beyond understanding or physical laws, praise God!
““Because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt.” Stephen illustrated that nothing is impossible when God is involved, even seemingly natural rules of our bodies, such as the normal age of a husband and wife conceiving and giving birth to a baby. Stephen now gives an example that men cannot stop the promises of God. Jacob loved Joseph more than the rest of His sons because Joseph was born to Jacob when Jacob was of an old age (Genesis 37:3). We know that is true because the Word states it. Yet certainly there was more reason than age. If age were the only factor than Joseph’s younger brother Benjamin would logically have been his favorite. Another reason that Jacob loved Joseph so much was that he was born to his beloved Rachel, his favorite wife. Yet, again, Benjamin was also born to Rachel. Rachel was whom Jacob first fell in love with. Rachel’s father Laban had promised her hand to Jacob in return for seven years of labor. Laban then cheated Jacob and substituted Leah (Rachel’s older sister) for Rachel. Jacob, who greatly loved Rachel, was required by Laban to work for another seven years before he would give Rachel to him. So Jacob gave fourteen years of labor to have Rachel as His wife. Rachel was the love of His life. So we know that Joseph being born of Rachel was another part of the reason that He loved Joseph more than the rest of his sons. However, if being born to Rachel, and being born late in Jacob’s life were the sole factors of being Jacob’s favorite, then Benjamin would have been his favorite. Of course we know the custom that the eldest male born would gain the full inheritance and be the favorite. However that custom has not held up in the Bible and if that were the sole factor, then Reuben, the eldest son of Abraham, son of Leah, would have been his favorite, but Joseph was. Family, our all-knowing God who has known all things from eternity past knew who was best suited to fulfill His plans as the descendant of Jacob. He knew how Israel would be provided for and protected and which of Jacobs’s sons would be most suited to do the will of God and so keep the promise of God to Abraham. God is the one who grants favor. God is the one who places people in position. Why did Joseph have Jacob’s favor? Because it was God’s will. God steered Jacob’s heart. Family, it is our all-knowing God who grants favor.
We should not wonder about our position, or be jealous of the position of another, but rather faithfully know that God knows our position and has prepared and gifted us for it, as He prepared Joseph for all he was called to do. The person who seems to be in an elevated position is prepared by God for it. And we are prepared and gifted by God for where we are. Neither the one who seems to be elevated nor are us meant for the other’s position. Not that positions don’t change. Besides, is God working through one person more highly valued than God working through another? No, God working through any of us in any way is to be treasured and valued. And who of us is to say who is in a position to better serve the will of God. Let us be humble and let God be the one who exalts (Matthew 23:12). After all, He is never wrong. Praise God!
We see in Stephen’s defense of the Jesus that God is forever faithful. God was faithful to Abraham during his life. God was faithful to Abraham as He watched over and guided his descendants. God is still faithful to Abraham as His eyes are today on Israel. In the book of Revelation we see that God remains faithful to Abraham and they receive Jesus their Messiah. God is also faithful to us. Jesus died for the Apostles and loved them, and also died for us and loved us (John 17:20). As God has been and is faithful to Abraham and to His descendants, so He has been and is faithful to all who love and honor His Son Jesus as Savior and Lord. God was faithful to Jesus and remains faithful to Jesus. None shall live with God forever except those who belong to Jesus. None! (Acts 4:12, 1 Timothy 2:5) If that were not so, then God would do Himself evil and He cannot do that because there is no evil in Him. And God cannot be unfaithful to us without being unfaithful to Himself. So when we want to call what happens to us wrong, or evil, or bad, let us first consider who truly knows what is wrong, or evil or bad and ask ourselves if we really want to accuse God of being slack or of being unfaithful. God forbid that any of us should do so! Rather let us live in faith in the goodness of God. Let us live a life of praising and not doubting Him. Family, let us shout praises to God! Praise our God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Acts 7:1-51 / 6-7 – God spoke to him in this way: ‘For four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated. 7 But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves,’ God said, ‘and afterward they will come out of that country and worship me in this place.’
Sometimes when we are in the midst of trials, we can “feel” very alone. Some may wonder “Where is God now? Didn’t He promise to always be with me?” (Matthew 28:20) Sometimes when we are going through the fiery furnaces of our life, when life seems too much to handle, we look around ourselves and feel like we woke up and everything and everyone who was with us is gone. It is possible to ask God “Where are you now? As I look around I don’t see any evidence of You around.” In the depth of hard circumstances, some may accuse God of not being aware of our situation and if He is aware of our situation, how could we possibly deserve our situation? We cry out to God that we have served Him the best we can and so why has God allowed what has come upon us to come upon us?
Job was a righteous man who went through the toughest of circumstances, and yielded only a little to complaining about his circumstances. He complained to God that he did not deserve what had befallen him. Therefore since God is in control and Job thought he did not deserve what he was going through, then God was either mistaken or had not been just with Job. God responded to Job “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8) Family, God did not cut Job slack and say to him “Well, it’s okay, you’re only human.” No, rather, out of His love for Job, He challenged Job. Job was putting up his righteousness against God’s righteousness. Job had said of his own righteousness “But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” (Job 23:10) He, after being pushed very hard by his “comforters” was reacting. Still, after all that Job had suffered through, and all that he was still enduring, when Job wondered where God was, God reveals that He was always with Job. After all, when Job complained, God heard it. God heard everything that Job had ever said and saw all that he had ever done. The Lord knew all that Job would say, all the things he would do before the galaxies were ever created.
In Job 1 God says that Job lived a righteous life and was very complete (among mankind) in his walk with God. God loved Job and was proud to let the devil know how much He loved him and how proud He was of him. So, if anyone up to that time would have been allowed to complain about circumstances it sure would seem that Job was that person. However, even though Job only murmured about his circumstances God was quick to call Job out. He reminded Job that he did not know the future plans of God and that He could not comprehend the entirety of God’s work and plans. No man has the right to question the goodness of God. Really, we shouldn’t even travel that road, though many will. Praise God for His grace to us. Since we know God is infinitely above us, that His self and His ways are beyond our comprehension, why would we think that we are able to judge whether anything that happens to us as good or bad. If a person that we love dies, do we know all, yes all, the ramifications of that person’s death? If God’s name is glorified by our death, do we think that an unworthy reason for our death? If we suffer extreme hardship, but the name of God is glorified as the faith of another is built as we praise God through the hardship, is that okay with us? In light of the fact that Jesus gave up all for us, what is it that is too much for us endure for Him? We must remember that for Job being “only human” was not an excuse, even for this man who so sought after and so pleased God, to complain.
God always knew and always was aware of everything that Job went through. God was and is always knowing everything that Israel has went through and is going through. God said to His beloved Israel that He was watching and that those who harmed Israel would suffer His wrath. All that Israel went through, all that they go through, God sees and allows. Though they may not have understood, and though they may not now understand, they one day will know Jesus as their Savior and Lord and then they will understand. In fact, they will gladly, at that time, give up all, even their only lives, should the Lord demand it. The future love and dedication of Israel is an example for us today. How God loves and watches over them He also loves and watches over us. Family, let’s be willing to give up all for God should that be His will. Let us, who know that God knows all and that we don’t, and who know that Jesus suffered and died for us, let us let the blessing of knowing that God is good all the time, that He loves us, and that He at all times is able whatever the circumstance, believe in Him. May we do so with all our hearts, all our minds, all our souls and all our strength (Mark 12:30) Let’s never waver in our belief. May our trust in Him be infinitely deeper than any trust we have in our own intellect and reasoning. If we so commit ourselves, the peace of God will reign in all circumstances. It is not that a punch in the nose does not hurt, it is that a punch in the nose cannot steal the peace of God from us. Praise our God who watches over and protects us and who has already provided the final victory for us. May we walk in the knowledge and the peace of the work of Jesus who is the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life. Praise God! Praise God! Praise God!
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.
Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord!
Micah 7:7 – But as for me, I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me.
Micah 6:8 – He has shown You, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of You but to do justly, to love mercy, And to walk humbly with Your God.