Tag: Genesis 50:24-25
Sunday rest and reflection
Genesis began with God. He is the central figure! He is creating, working and enjoying! It was good! Man was placed by God in a Garden, walking with God in the cool of the day! Man is made special and in God’s image, male and female. Man is to rule over creation and tend it with God’s blessing!
Genesis is foundational to our worldview as Christians. Without Genesis we wouldn’t understand where the universe, earth, and solar system came from. Without Genesis we wouldn’t know about the serpent and how sin entered along with death. We wouldn’t know about our special creation and purpose on the earth. We wouldn’t understand why the world was flooded and where the rainbow came from and what it testifies about! We would struggle to understand how we got all the nations and languages. We would not know how and why God began the nation of Israel and His plans to bless the world through Abraham’s offspring. We would not understand the conflict in the Middle East that pits millions of Arabs and Ishmael’s descendants against the Jews and Christians. We would miss all the rich stories of the fathers of faith as they struggled to walk with God, wrestled with Him, and followed Him through famine, imprisonment, threats and their eventual death. The lives of Adam, Eve, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca, Jacob, Esau, Rachael, Leah, Joseph, Judah, and numerous others are chronicled. We read about their successes and failures; their loves and their quarrels; about births and deaths. They were much like us, yet known by name by our Father God!
Genesis 50:24-25 “And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you shall carry up my bones from here.”
God’s abundant faithfulness!
Scripture reading for January 28th: Genesis 49-50, Galatians 4
Galatians 4: 28-31 “Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of promise. But just as at that time he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so also it is now. But what does the Scripture say? “Cast out the slave woman and her son, for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with the son of the free woman.” So, brothers, we are not children of the slave but of the free woman.”
In Galatians, Paul was giving the believers, many of them of Jewish descent, a lesson in God’s faithfulness to bring about His promises to His people. God had promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that they would inherit the land of promise–Canaan. That they would be free from slavery and brought into the ‘land of promise’, where all of God’s promises would be fulfilled through faith in Jesus Christ, God’s Son. It wasn’t in keeping the law, for that brought slavery to sin and only a deeper understanding of the need for the promise of mercy through Christ. Our reading in Genesis 50 clarifies God’s overall plan to take His people out of Egypt, a place of slavery, and bring them back in His power and with His presence to the promised land and freedom. Amen! Let it be so in me by faith in the Promise!
Genesis 50:19-20 “But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God? As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”
Prayer: Father God, thank You for the deliverance from slavery to sin and from human effort to keep Your law. I receive the promise of grace through faith in Jesus Christ and claim my inheritance–the Holy Spirit Who restored me to freedom and eternal life. As Joseph made the sons of Israel promise to take his bones up from Egypt, so I trust You to resurrect my bones to the promise of eternal life in Your presence!
Genesis 50:24-25 “And Joseph said to his brothers, “I am about to die, but God will visit you and bring you up out of this land to the land that He swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” Then Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely visit you, and you will carry my bones up from here.””