January 16 - Genesis 42:1-45:15

Good morning everyone,

As we begin reading today, the famine has spread through out all of Canaan. When Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt he sent 10 of his sons, leaving Benjamin behind, to buy some. Since Joseph was the governor of the land it would be him that the brothers would have to face to make the request for grain. When they met him they showed the proper respect and bowed down to Joseph who recognized them immediately, however they had no idea that it was Joseph they were talking to. We know that Joseph was glad to see them, we’re told he wept but for the time being Joseph kept his identity a secret, he confronted them with life and death, made them squirm a bit, causing them to remember what they had done to Joseph many years ago. He created a situation where they would have to bring Benjamin, his only brother by his mother Rachel, to Egypt and as far as they knew in jeopardy of becoming enslaved. Then Joseph set them up, he hid his silver cup in Benjamin’s sack and accused him of stealing it. When Joseph told the ten brothers that they could go back home but Benjamin would have to stay to pay for the crime of taking the cup Judah asked for a word with Joseph. Judah pleaded on behalf of Benjamin and Jacob, knowing what it would do to his father, offering to exchange places with Benjamin. This touched Joseph so deeply that he revealed his true identity to the brothers and could be heard weeping throughout the house. Imagine the brothers surprise and fear when they realized it was, in fact, Joseph they were talking to. They were quickly reassured that they had nothing to fear then sent back to get Jacob to bring him and the entire family to Joseph, where they would have plenty to eat.

This is beautiful story of faith and forgiveness. Joseph had, what most people would consider, every right to still be angry with his brothers, hold a grudge, get even, but he didn’t. He was so overcome with joy he wept on more than one occasion. Love, love, love his heart!! We should all be more like that. Sometimes terrible things happen and we just don’t get the “why”. In this story  Joseph saw the “why” and before Jacob died he was able to see the “why” in his heart being broken with his favorite son being taken from him at such a young age, presumably dead. Since most of us don’t live to be 147 years old, more often than not we don’t see the “why” of what God does, we don’t see the whole picture. God calls us to trust Him and as Christians to not only ‘talk the talk’ but ‘walk the walk’, to have faith in our God. He is an awesome God and His plans and ways are perfect.

I pray you have a good day.

God bless you all.

January 15 - Genesis 40:1-23 | Genesis 35:28-29 | Genesis 41:1-57

Good morning everyone,

Today we open up with Joseph still in prison, after being falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, where he will meet the kings cup bearer and baker both also having landed themselves in prison. While in there Joseph will interpret dreams for them which tells of their future. Later when the king himself has a couple of disturbing dreams the cup bearer will remember what Joseph had done and mention it to the king. The king sends for Joseph and after interpreting the kings dreams Joseph is immediately placed in charge of the land, second in command, answering only to the king himself. 

Is that something or what? Joseph’s life has been one of a roller coaster ride, born into a wealthy household, sold into slavery, put in charge of the Captain of the  Guards, Potiphar’s, estate, then back to prison and now he is second in command of all the land. What I see here and love is that not once do we read that Joseph was bitter or angry with God  over his circumstances. He carried on and even in slavery and prison he did well, he did not sit around being miserable he instead worked at making things better so that even the guards took notice and put him in charge of other prisoners.

How do you react when things don’t go your way or just how you have them planned out? Do you spend a lot of time being angry, kicking a can around, so to speak; or do you look around at the place God has you and see opportunities to do a whole different kind of work, something you would not have planned but the need is there and the reward is so much greater if only you get over yourself and be content, happy with what you do have.

I wonder how many lives were changed at just getting the opportunity to hear from Joseph when he was in prison. Today there is a christian woman named Hannah Overton who despite the lack of evidence sits in a prison cell in Texas. Without going into her whole story, she was falsely accused of contributing to the death of her foster child. It is shocking how blinded and inconsistent the system has been in her case and yet there she sits. Does she mope about crying “why me”? No, instead she has started Bible study after Bible study and has brought countless women to the Lord. When she gets to heaven not only will her reward will be great, but she will get to see all the many people, God’s plan to have her where she is today, saved.

How is God using you?

Have a great day.

God bless you all …

January 14 - Genesis 37-38:30; 1 Chronicles 2:3-6; 1 Chronicles 2:8; Genesis 39:1-23

Good morning everyone,

Today we will take a look at Joseph’s life from the time he was a strapping young lad of 17 working as a shepherd in his father’s fields up to the time he gets falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife an lands in prison. 

Joseph’s confidence and natural self-assurance was continually fed by a father who loved him the most, this proving to be quite frustrating at best, to his ten older brothers. It was after Joseph revealed to them a dream he had where he saw them all bowing down to him that the brothers finally lost it and while they originally planned to kill him instead sold him into slavery where he would become the property of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh’s officials.

Under the guidance of the Lord Joseph prospered there giving him success in all that he did until Potiphar put Joseph in charge of his entire household. Potiphar’s wife was a woman with too much time on her hands and continually sought to have he way with Joseph, but being the loyal servant to God and Potiphar would have nothing to do with her. One day while Potiphar was away Joseph went to the home to see to his daily work and found all of the servants gone and Potiphar’s wife with trouble written all over her. Once more Joseph runs from her attempt but she grabs on to his cloak and in her humility summons the household servants and proceeds to tell them a lie which ends up with Joseph in prison.

In the middle of the retelling of Josephs story we have the account of Tamar and Judah. When Judah was very young, about 15 he left his family clan and married a Canaaite woman who bore him sons and Tamar was married to Judah’s first born son Er however he was a wicked man so the Lord put him to death. In that day the if widow had no children it would be the responsibility for the brother of the deceased to make sure the widow became pregnant. When Onan would marry Tamar he did not want to raise his brother’s seed and wouldn’t fulfill his duty to Tamar in that way so the Lord saw this as wicked and he was also put to death. 

The choice he made was so much worse that death, because the Messiah was going to descend from Judah and had he followed his fathers instructions, the actual law of the land, instead of being guilty of wickedness he might have had a place of honor in the Messiah’s line of ancestors. Well, Tamar will become pregnant through Judah, making her a part of Jesus’s family tree, forever linking her name to His.

This is a great story and a really good illustration of how if we would just follow God our Father’s instructions we will be blessed beyond our wildest dreams. It is when we choose to be defiant and do things our own way that disaster comes knocking on our door. It is my prayer that we all have an ear to hear the loving voice of Jesus beckoning us to choose Christ.

I pray you have a good day.

God bless you all …

January 13 - 

Genesis 36:1-19 | 1 Chronicles 1:35-37 | Genesis36:20-30 | 1 Chronicles1:38-42 | Genesis 36:31-43 | 1 Chronicles 1:43-2:2

Good morning everyone,

Today we get to take a look at a lot of genealogy along with a rundown on who the kings were that reined in Edom before any Israelite ever reined there. Again, while tedious I found it very interesting, Tell me, what did you think? :-)

Tomorrow we will move on to the life of Joseph, so I thought that because there is not a whole lot for me to say in reference to the genealogy I would share a few fun facts about Joseph.

Joseph was one of Jacob’s twelve sons but shared a mother, Rachel, with only one of his brothers,  Benjamin. Joseph was Jacob’s favorite son and in the chapters coming up we will read of how that caused him a bit of grief. We will also read of some very interesting fact about Joseph that parallel with Jesus such as; respectively, their fathers loved them dearly, their brothers were less than nice to them, others plotted to harm them, they were both tempted, both falsely accused, both placed with two prisoners of which one was saved and one lost, and both forgave those who wronged them, to name a few. I know you are going to enjoy reading about Joseph, it really is a terrific story.

In the meantime I hope you have a super good day.

God bless you all …

January 12 - Genesis 32:1-35:27

Good morning everyone,

Today we read how Jacob is preparing to meet Esau. You can imagine how nervous Jacob must have been over returning to his home. Jacob hasn’t seen or talked to his brother since he fled after tricking Esau out of his birth right and blessing. Jacob wants to pave the way and sends waves of gifts ahead of himself, cattle, donkeys, sheep, goats, plus male and female servants along with a message for Esau, in hopes of a favorable meeting. Jacob divided his group of people so that  if Esau did attacked he would not get all of them, he also sent his two wives and children across the ford of the Jabbok. While alone Jacob wrestled all night long in hand to hand combat with an angel, however Jacob over powered him and when the angel realized this he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip leaving him with a permanent limp. In Hosea 12:4 we will read that this was not only a physical struggle but it was a spiritual struggle as well, that Jacob wept and made supplication, he cried out to God and prayed. His faith saw him through and that night Jacob is told “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.” 

We’ll see that all Jacob’s fears about meeting his brother were in vain, Esau was overjoyed to see Jacob and meet his family. The enemy loves to work in our heads, loves to make us believe the worst. We need to always remember to go boldly in God.

God bless you all …

January 11 - Genesis 30:25-31:55

Good morning everyone,

In today’s reading we will find that shortly after Joseph was born Jacob had had enough and was ready to go home. In chapter 31 he loads up his wives, his children, all his possessions and livestock to secretly head back to the land of his father. Unbeknownst to Jacob, Rachel had taken a god from her father’s house and hidden it in the pack her camel wore. When Laban was told Jacob had fled he took of after them, caught up to them and questioned Jacob as to why he left the way he did and why did he take the idol. Jacob tells him he left the way he did because he did not trust Laban to let him go and he also told him he had no knowledge of any idol being taken and encouraged Laban to search all the tents if he wished for it. That is exactly what he did however when he gets to Rachel’s tent we will see how well she has learned from her father and lies to him so he does not find the household god.Eventually all hard feelings are soothed over. Jacob and Laban make a treaty and each go their own ways though not before Laban has one final act of control. 

Though we are all selfish in our own ways, some are a little more selfish than others. Laban’s whole life was one of self-centeredness. His main goal in life was to look out after himself, controlling others to achieve the goal. Even when Jacob out maneuvers him by taking off, Laban has to have the final power play and gets Jacob to promise he would be gone for good.

I guess what we could see here is that we are all to some degree selfish like Laban. We all want to be the ones calling the shots,  it is very difficult for us see our own errors and equally as difficult to admit when we are wrong. Pride will raise it’s ugly head when we don’t get our own way, and we are capable of doing some not so pretty things. I would encourage us all to pray to God and ask Him to reveal any selfish pride the enemy has locked away in us, subtly disguised, camouflaged as something other than what it is, sin. Because you see sin creates distance between us and our God who wants only to be close to us.

I pray you have a great day wherever you are,

God bless you all.

January 10 - Genesis 28:6-30:24

Good morning everyone,

This morning we pick up with Jacob fleeing from his brother to go and live with his mother’s family in Haran. While in route  God appears to him in a dream where he sees a stairway that reached from earth to heaven with angels of God going up and down it, can you even imagine how awesome that would have been to see? Anyway, the purpose of the dream is to confirm the covenant promises made by God to Abraham. 

When Jacob gets to Haran history repeats itself in that, like Jacob’s mother Rebekah who was found by the well so will Jacob find his love Rachel and set out to make her his wife. This is not going to be as easy as he had hoped it would be though and Jacob will soon  learn what it is like to be on the other side of deception, however through this we will see that Jacob is a very patient man and how as a strong leader he could also be a servant. Jacob worked seven years for the hand of Rachel but Laban, her father, instead gave Leah her older sister away to Jacob and told him that the would have to work another seven years and he could then have Rachel for his wife, which he did.

In chapter 29:31 we read that “When the Lord saw that Leah was not loved, he enabled her to conceive, but Rachel remained childless”. Rachel became frustrated with this and in an effort to win the affection of Jacob which (btw) she already had will, like Sarah, take things into her own hands and give her servant over to her husband to have sons for her. In the end God will open her womb and she will give birth to Joseph.

Trusting God and being patient when nothing seems to happen is so very difficult, but it is harder still to live with the consequence of choice when we take matters into our won hands. Are you waiting on something today that you feel the Lord has either forgotten about or is not acting quickly enough for you? I would encourage you to resist temptation. Pray and ask God for the patience and courage to wait on Him.

I pray you all have a good day,

God bless you.