“Glory to the Precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

11 Peter 5: 10, 11  But may the God of all grace, who called us to His eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you. 

To Him be the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

Hallelujah

Possessing the Promise - as a pattern

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the portion of the Bible that we meditated upon yesterday God shows us how he redeems us from Jacob, from traditions and how the generation is manifested in Jacob and that generation is Christ and how that generation will receive the blessing from God and  shows us what God's blessing is and God shows that blessing as a pattern through Joseph and how God predestined Joseph to save the souls of the whole family and in order to preserve life God shows Joseph as a pattern by taking him to Egypt and when there was a famine in Egypt where there was no grain how they sold grain in Egypt and when severe famine came in Canaan he saw the fathers of the ten tribes in Egypt and gave them grain and we meditated on his good characters in the past days.

My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, in the past days when Jacob's ten sons came to Joseph, he saw that his brother Benjamin did not come. In order to bring him he kept Simeon in the prison bound and sent the remaining nine brothers with their sacks full with grain, and the money that each one brought was kept in their own sack, and we read in God's word that he gave them provisions for the journey. When they were on their journey, they opened their sack to give their donkey feed at the encampment, they saw their money in the mouth of his sack. Genesis 42: 28 So he said to his brothers, “My money has been restored, and there it is, in my sack!” Then their hearts failed them and they were afraid, saying to one another, “What is this that God has done to us?”

From this what we understand is that, we have to receive from God the grain that is the word of God. Also when we go to God's presence we should not go empty handed but we should take what belongs to God for God in our hands. That is why, in Numbers 16: 17 Let each take his censer and put incense in it, and each of you bring his censer before the Lord, two hundred and fifty censers; both you and Aaron, each with his censer.” 

We are able to read that Joseph returns the money that his brothers brought as offering and sends them with double blessings. In the same way, our God gives us back a double portion of what we give him.

Numbers 15: 19 then it will be, when you eat of the bread of the land, that you shall offer up a heave offering to the Lord.

That is why God says in Malachi 3: 10 Bring all the tithes into the storehouse, That there may be food in My house, And try Me now in this,” Says the Lord of hosts, “If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such blessing That there will not be room enough to receive it.

Then they went to Jacob their father and told him all that had happened to them, saying:  “The man who is lord of the land took us for spies of the country. But we said to him, ‘We are honest men; we are not spies. We are twelve brothers, sons of our father; one is no more, and the youngest is with our father this day in the land of Canaan.’ and they told their father Jacob.

Then the man, the lord of the country, said to us, ‘By this I will know that you are honest men: Leave one of your brothers here with me, take food for the famine of your households, and be gone. And bring your youngest brother to me; so I shall know that you are not spies, but that you are honest men. I will grant your brother to you, and you may trade in the land.’ ”

When they told their father these things, then it happened as they emptied their sacks, that surprisingly each man’s bundle of money was in his sack; and when they and their father saw the bundles of money, they were afraid. 

When God does these kind of things in our lives we do not think that God is doing these things for our good. That is how Jacob also thought. But Jacob is telling “You have bereaved me: Joseph is no more, Simeon is no more, and you want to take Benjamin. All these things are against me.” The reason he says like that is when such a temptation comes, he becomes weary and forgets the promise that God gave him.

In the same way, many of us when God makes us stand in a test, we become weary and we murmur with our mouth. In this manner, the generation of Israel in the journey of faith,  in the journey from Egypt to Canaan they murmured against God. And they tested God. We see that those who tested God ten times died. These Israelites are Jacob's sons - the generation of the fathers of the ten tribes.

Since Jacob did not remember the promise that God gave him so he is speaking this way.

Genesis 35: 9 - 13 Then God appeared to Jacob again, when he came from Padan Aram, and blessed him. 

And God said to him, “Your name is Jacob; your name shall not be called Jacob anymore, but Israel shall be your name.” So He called his name Israel. 

Also God said to him: “I am God Almighty. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 

In this manner, God had given a promise to Jacob. But because Jacob did not think about it and so he was not willing to send his younger son, Benjamin to Egypt and he thinks that everything that happened in his life was against him and speaks like this.

Then Reuben spoke to his father, saying, “Kill my two sons if I do not bring him back to you; put him in my hands, and I will bring him back to you.”

But because Jacob did not understand God's word  Genesis 42: 38  But he said, “My son shall not go down with you, for his brother is dead, and he is left alone. If any calamity should befall him along the way in which you go, then you would bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.”

But in Deuteronomy 33: 12  Of Benjamin he said: “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him, Who shelters him all the day long; And he shall dwell between His shoulders.”

God has given such a promise about Benjamin through Moses. That is why to Jacob God says a nation and a company of nations shall proceed from you, and kings shall come from your body. 

This means that in Jacob a holy nation will arise and from the twelve father's of the tribes many company of nations will proceed. Also God says that kings will be born in your generation. Our Lord God will keep the anointing of the kings in them and make them as kings and priests.

In order that each one of us should receive this blessing, to make us kings and priests we do not think the promise that God has given us and many of us are perishing on the way. In order to possess this blessing, Our Lord God is calling us through Christ. We must realize the calling and the selection of our lives and be careful.

May the Lord bless you all. Let us pray. 

-To be continued