Daily Devotional, Genesis Chapter 47, 48, Matthew 9
God Takes Care of His Own and a Bold Faith and Response.
The first chapter today, 47, shows us a shrewd business man, yet a man who also understood the concept of caring for his people. In today's world it's hard to imagine a king, president ruler, requiring someone to give them all of their animals, all of their land, and then 1/5th of their possessions in order to survive but that is exactly what Joseph and the King of Egypt does. Of course early on, Joseph and his family were provided the best land to raise their sheep on and the King had them take also care of his flocks. How would we look at this in today's world?
We also see before going to the next chapter that Jacob, Joseph's father is getting older and near death. He makes a request to not be buried in Egypt but instead in his homeland.
In Chapter 48 we see that Jacob is sick and Joseph takes
his sons to visit him. We see the concern of a grandfather for his
grandchildren and an act that while on the surface seems confusing, was one
directed by God, that has Jacob giving the primary blessing to the youngest of
hi grandsons when was normally for the older son. Even though Joseph tries to
correct this, Jacob assures him that he knows what he is doing.
Through all of his years, Jacob kept his faith in God. He kept in tune with God to know what the Lord would want him to do, even if it meant going against tradition. In the same way today followers of Jesus must be willing to be in tune with The Holy Spirit. Do we have a deep enough relationship that we can go against the flow or traditions when God calls us to? We also need to look at our children and grandchildren and take into consideration that what we teach them should be things that will carry on for generations, long after we are gone.
Matthew 9
We see this chapter start off with Jesus being criticized for healing a man. How many times in today's world do we as followers of Jesus get criticized for standing up for Godly principals? Remember it happened Jesus was the Son of God NS If it happened to him, it will happen to us. Jesus gives indication as to how to deal with such criticisms. He didn't just stand by and say nothing, He responded in wisdom, not in foolishness.
We see Jesus chose Matthew, a tax collector to be one of His first disciples. Again, He is questioned about the decision while at a party at Matthew's. Jesus responds again in a way to confront and address reality. He doesn't just take the criticism, He finds a way to respond in such a way as to show the true intent of those asking the questions. Some of the questions He is asked isn't only from followers of John the Baptist.
In the confrontations and interaction with Jesus we see that the questions are often asked because the people doubting who Jesus is. The rest of the chapter we see stories of people who had faith in who He was. We see Jesus performing acts that only God can perform and much of the time healings and responses are based on the persons faith. A faith that recognizes Jesus as the Son of God.
At the conclusion of the chapter we see Jesus teaching the disciples. He realizes there is a great deal of work to be done and the concept of faith would largely be based on the responses His followers gave to those seeking out truth. A huge part of that response was miracles, not just miracles though, While a physical healing was a part of it, an answer and miracle of recognizing in various ways that Jesus was the Son of God and the answer to their problems was a part of it. Jesus was the messiah many were looking for. He showed in His responses to others, there was a need for His disciples to also show that type of love, while at the same time, standing bold in their faith in the Son of Man, Jesus.
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