THE BEAUTY OF GRACE

Can I pray for you in any way?

Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.

In Christ, Mark

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

** Follow The Christian Walk on Twitter @ThChristianWalk

** Like posts and send friend requests to the author of The Christian Walk, Mark Cummings on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/mark.cummings.733?ref=tn_tnmn

** Become a Follower of The Christian Walk at http://the-christian-walk.blogspot.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy word.

He had Simeon taken from them and bound before their eyes.

Joseph gave orders to fill their bags with grain, to put each man's silver back in his sack, and to give them provisions for their journey. After this was done for them, they loaded their grain on their donkeys and left.

At the place where they stopped for the night one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey, and he saw his silver in the mouth of his sack. "My silver has been returned," he said to his brothers. "Here it is in my sack."

Genesis 42:24b-28a

This ends this reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.

After a three day imprisonment, one where his brothers had the chance to do some real soul searching, Joseph released them. We read where they decided to leave Simeon behind after Joseph demanded that they return home and then return with their youngest brother, Benjamin, to prove they were telling the truth about not being spies and having a younger brother. We will see that Joseph really wanted to see his only true brother by blood, both he and Benjamin born from the same mother, Rachel.

The scriptures tell us that as his brothers were about to load up and leave Egypt, Joseph does something wonderful for them. He refunds the money they paid for the grain and makes sure they have the provisions needed to return to Canaan and through his actions, he teaches us an important life lesson about forgiveness, mercy, and grace.

Now, you’ll recall that when Joseph’s brothers sold him off into slavery, they not only took away his dignity, but they also took away the thing he valued most: the special coat of many colors made for him by his father, Jacob. Fast forward to our passage for today and we find Joseph with a ripe opportunity to do unto his brothers as they had done to him but he doesn’t. Instead, he chooses to bless them and make sure they would be all right as they returned home to Jacob and his brother Benjamin who he missed dearly. You’ll remember that all this happened after Joseph listened to his brothers reveal their remorseful, troubled spirits while reflecting on the sins they had committed against him.

And with that, Joseph sent the brothers off and when they “they stopped for the night:, we read where “one of them opened his sack to get feed for his donkey” and discovered that “his silver” was “in the mouth of his sack”, a discovery that he shared with his brothers.  

As we read this today, I wonder how many of us have been done wrong in life by someone, left betrayed, abandoned, alone, and feeling unloved in the process. I am also left to think about how we may have responded in the aftermath of such an act, especially if the person who harmed us later displayed a spirit of regret for what they had done.

Did we forgive and show mercy as Joseph did?

It’s a question we need to consider and if we failed to do so, or are failing to do so right now, then it’s time to think about making things right.

Need some motivation?

If so, then think about how many times you have betrayed the Lord with your behavior.

How many times have you sinned against Him?

Maybe that’s a question we don’t want to answer, right?

And yet, we must.

For by merit of me writing this and you reading it, we are living testimonies to the amazing forgiveness that God shows on a regular basis, a forgiveness we don’t deserve, a forgiveness that we’ll never understand. It’s a forgiveness that led to Him offering up His only Son Jesus because He didn’t want us to perish and the scriptures tell us that He did it all out of love (John 3:16). And then His Son, falsely accused and brutally beaten and dying through crucifixion, looks down on those who assaulted him physically and verbally, and asks His Father to forgive them because they didn’t know what they were doing (Luke 23:34).

Friends, as Christian believers, we can learn a lot from Joseph’s attitude toward his brothers but we learn even more through the God who made us and His Son through which we have salvation. Through them, forgiveness isn’t optional but rather mandated. And yes, while our hearts can be broken by others, we serve a Lord who mends up the brokenhearted (Psalm 147:3), healing us from the inside out so we can then extend His measure of love, pardon, and mercy to others on the outside.

And when we do this, we extend God’s grace to others, a grace that is truly amazing and beautiful, both when we receive it and give it.

Amen.

In Christ,

Mark

PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it. Send any prayer requests to TheChristianWalkPrayers@gmail.com.