Joseph

Thursday, December 20, 2007

SPIRITUAL DIARY

My Worship Time                              Focus: Joseph

Bible Reading & Mediation                          Reference:  Genesis 37:1-2

            Message of the verses:  “1.  Now Jacob lived in the land where his father had sojourned, in the land of Canaan.  2.  These are the records of the generations of Jacob. Joseph, when seventeen years of age, was pasturing the flock with his brothers while he was still a youth, along with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives. And Joseph brought back a bad report about them to their father.”

            Genesis 37 starts a new section in the book of Genesis, and it moves from Isaac to Jacob even though Jacob was mentioned a lot in the story of his father Isaac.  But Isaac was now dead and the story moves to Jacob, but Joseph is actually the one who is mentioned more in this section than Jacob.

            As I look at the story of Jacob and Joseph it shows that there were a lot of problems that were going on in this family.  Jacob came from a family where his mother loved him more than his brother and his father love his brother more than him, and so that problem comes with Jacob.  Jacob actually has four wives now and thirteen children from those four wives and this presents a great problem.  Jacob shows more love for Joseph than the other brothers who by this time are much older than Joseph, and this too causes a lot of problems.  Joseph’s brothers actually hated him as stated in the text, and partly because he had come to this father and told him about something that his brothers were doing that was not right and was probably something against their father.

            The Bible does not call Joseph a “Type” of Christ, but there are some similar things in the life of Joseph with the life of Christ.  They were loved  by their Father and hated by their brethren.  They did their Father’s will, sold as a slave, unjustly accused of a crime and were ascended to a high position.  They were both sold for silver too.

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  God is a covenant keeping God who always keeps His promises even though in the case of Jacob’s family there was sin, as is the case in my life too, yet Romans 5:20b states:  “but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”  This does not give me or anyone else a license to sin, but because I am a saved sinner who still has a sin nature, a selfish nature I still sin, yet God does have a plan for my life, and that plan for my life is part of God’s plan and He will give me the grace to do the things He has for me to do.

My Steps of Faith for Today:  I want to continue to believe that God does certainly have a plan for my life and to be obedient to the cause of Christ each day of my life even when things are not going well in my life, and things have not gone well in my life for most of 2007, yet I am sure that God has a great purpose for all of the events that are going on.