Your Daily Devotional for March 22, 2006

March 22, 2006

 

Joseph--the Finisher

by Dr. Paul chappell

 

"And Joseph said unto his brethren, I am Joseph; doth my father yet live? And his brethren could not answer him; for they were troubled at his presence. And Joseph said unto his brethren, Come near to me, I pray you. And they came near. And he said, I am Joseph your brother, whom ye sold into Egypt."

Genesis 45:3-4

 

Everyone faces crisis. Oftentimes, those crises are brought on by Satan himself as fiery darts against you, your family, and your faithfulness. The Devil is doing everything he can to cause people to get out of the race. He doesn’t want you to finish your race. He doesn’t want you to see that checkered flag. He doesn’t want you to cross the finish line.

 

If there ever was a man in the Bible who could have justified quitting, it was Joseph. Talk about a dysfunctional family! His brothers sold him into slavery. It would have been easy for Joseph to have said, “Well, I am the way I am because my family was messed up.” But he never blamed his family. Joseph, a man who had lived 110 years, never became bitter. Instead, he finished his course. He had a sweet spirit. He had a loving attitude. He had a passion for God.

 

How can we finish that way? How can we finish with that kind of a zealous testimony? I want to share with you some principles from Joseph’s life that I pray will help you and help me to finish our race.

 

Joseph never stopped trusting God. No matter what happened, no matter what the Devil threw at him; he never stopped trusting in and believing on God. Hebrews 11:6 says, “But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.”

 

Why did Joseph cross the finish line? Because he was a man who kept believing in God? Yes! He was a man who would not quit on God even when others quit. There was something else in Joseph’s life that made him a finisher and that was his forgiving spirit.

 

Joseph could have taken his brother’s lives. After all, they had tried to take his life. They had sold him into slavery, and they had wronged him. And that is the way many angry people in our culture today seem to handle their problems. They try to just get even. Sometimes by bringing harm to someone that has brought harm to them.

 

Listen to how Joseph responsed to his brothers, “...be not grieved, nor angry with yourselves, that ye sold me...” (Genesis 45:5a) Can you hear his language of forgiveness? Though he had every right to be angry, instead, he chooses to forgive. Here we see the working of grace in the heart of a believer.

 

What do you do when someone wrongs you? What do you do when someone sends you an evil mailing or someone sends you an evil message? What do you do when someone at work says something bad about you? How do you handle conflict? When a family member criticizes your faith how do you respond? What are you supposed to do?

 

Well, if you want to finish, you must learn how to forgive. If you want to cross the finish line you need to learn how to trust God and give it to the Lord. Genesis 50 and verse 20 says, “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good...”

 

God has a reason for what you are going through today. Don’t quit. Determine like Joseph to finish your race!

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