Judah (Gen. 49:8-12)

 

SPIRITUAL DIARY FOR 02-11-2008

 

My Worship Time                                                                                          Focus:  Judah

 

Bible Reading & Meditation                                                 Reference:  Genesis 49:8-12

 

            Message of the verses:  “8 “Judah, your brothers will praise you. You will defeat your enemies. All your relatives will bow before you.  9 Judah is a young lion that has finished eating its prey. Like a lion he crouches and lies down; like a lioness—who will dare to rouse him?  10 The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from his descendants, until the coming of the one to whom it belongs, the one whom all nations will obey.  11 He ties his foal to a grapevine, the colt of his donkey to a choice vine. He washes his clothes in wine because his harvest is so plentiful.  12 His eyes are darker than wine, and his teeth are whiter than milk.”

 

            The story of Judah, which Jacob tells is a lot different than the previous brothers as Judah’s sins are not mentioned of which there were many.  I have to believe that it was the Spirit of the Lord speaking through Jacob as he blesses all of his sons just before he dies. 

 

            Judah is compared to a lion, a lioness, and a lion who has just finished eating its prey.  Judah was the royal tribe of which the King of Kings would come from and so the description of the king of beasts was a good one.  In the book of Revelations John describes Jesus as both a lion and also a lamb.  All of the kings of Judah came from the line of David to which God had given him a covenant that this would happen.

 

            I would suppose that one of the reasons that the sins of Judah were not mentioned was because that Judah had confessed them to the Lord and therefore the Spirit of the Lord while giving the words to Jacob as he spoke them knew that these sins were forgiven.  Judah had changed his ways and was becoming a real leader among his brothers.

 

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  What I see in the life of Judah, that is his growth as he grew older, is something that I want to be part of my life as I grow older.  This too was talked about in our Sunday school class yesterday.  The verse that we were talking about was 1 John 5:14, “14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”  The word confidence was the key work that caused our conversation, and as a believer grows older in their walk with the Lord they gain more and more confidence in the Lord and this is similar to Judah’s life and hopefully with mine.

 

My Steps of Faith for Today:  Have the confidence in the Lord that He will answer my prayers that I pray to Him this day.  I have confidence that the Lord will continue to teach me more and more to be content in my life as I go through the trials that I am going through with my wife, as we go through them together.

 

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.