God's Blessing

2/1/2008 9:34 AM

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                  Focus:  God’s Blessings

Bible Reading & Meditation             Reference:  Genesis 46:5-27

            Message of the verses:  “5 ¶  Then Jacob arose from Beersheba; and the sons of Israel carried their father Jacob and their little ones and their wives in the wagons which Pharaoh had sent to carry him.  6  They took their livestock and their property, which they had acquired in the land of Canaan, and came to Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him:  7  his sons and his grandsons with him, his daughters and his granddaughters, and all his descendants he brought with him to Egypt.  8  Now these are the names of the sons of Israel, Jacob and his sons, who went to Egypt: Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn.  9  The sons of Reuben: Hanoch and Pallu and Hezron and Carmi.

10  The sons of Simeon: Jemuel and Jamin and Ohad and Jachin and Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman.  11  The sons of Levi: Gershon, Kohath, and Merari.  12  The sons of Judah: Er and Onan and Shelah and Perez and Zerah (but Er and Onan died in the land of Canaan). And the sons of Perez were Hezron and Hamul.  13  The sons of Issachar: Tola and Puvvah and Iob and Shimron.  14  The sons of Zebulun: Sered and Elon and Jahleel.  15  These are the sons of Leah, whom she bore to Jacob in Paddan-aram, with his daughter Dinah; all his sons and his daughters numbered thirty-three.

16  The sons of Gad: Ziphion and Haggi, Shuni and Ezbon, Eri and Arodi and Areli.

17  The sons of Asher: Imnah and Ishvah and Ishvi and Beriah and their sister Serah. And the sons of Beriah: Heber and Malchiel.  18  These are the sons of Zilpah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Leah; and she bore to Jacob these sixteen persons.  19  The sons of Jacob’s wife Rachel: Joseph and Benjamin.  20  Now to Joseph in the land of Egypt were born Manasseh and Ephraim, whom Asenath, the daughter of Potiphera, priest of On, bore to him.  21  The sons of Benjamin: Bela and Becher and Ashbel, Gera and Naaman, Ehi and Rosh, Muppim and Huppim and Ard.  22  These are the sons of Rachel, who were born to Jacob; there were fourteen persons in all.  23  The sons of Dan: Hushim.

24  The sons of Naphtali: Jahzeel and Guni and Jezer and Shillem.  25  These are the sons of Bilhah, whom Laban gave to his daughter Rachel, and she bore these to Jacob; there were seven persons in all. 26  All the persons belonging to Jacob, who came to Egypt, his direct descendants, not including the wives of Jacob’s sons, were sixty-six persons in all,

27  and the sons of Joseph, who were born to him in Egypt were two; all the persons of the house of Jacob, who came to Egypt, were seventy.”

            This list first has the family that came from Leah, which included her sons, daughters, and grandchildren, (verses 81-15), then the family of Zilpah, (verses 16-18), then the family of Rachel, (verses 19-22), then the family of Bilhah, (verses 23-25).  There were 70 people in all from the family of Jacob who would be in Egypt including the family of Joseph.

            When one thinks about this in relationship with the promises that God had given to Abraham in the earlier chapters of Genesis the conclusion is that God has kept his promises.  At the time of the Exodus there were 600,000 males in this family and the possible total of over 2 million that would include the women and also all of the children.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  God surely cares for people, and I guess that whenever I come to one of the lists of people in the Bible I kind of get a little board, yet I know that God cares for all of them and that gives me faith to believe that He cares for me too.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Continue to trust that the Lord is involved in all of the problems that Sandy and I are going through and that He will bring about success to our lives, the kind of success that He wants to bring.

Memory verses for the week:  Philippians 1:9-11

9. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and  all discernment,
10. so that you may approve  the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ;
11. having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.