To Be Like Joseph

DO NOT BE DISTRESSED AND DO NOT BE ANGRY WITH YOURSELVES FOR SELLING ME HERE, BECAUSE IT WAS TO SAVE LIVES THAT GOD SENT ME AHEAD OF YOU. Genesis 45.5.

Joseph was a good man though he made his mistakes and suffered for it! But he learned precious lessons that made him Christ-like, through the pit and the prison God allowed him to go through. The one good thing we learn from him is that he never wavered in his faith in his God. He endured it all with good humour and great honour. He overcame every situation and excelled in all the jobs he was forced to do! He was proud to do his very best in the most adverse and humiliating circumstances. What a man and what great lessons he has to teach us who also at times have to face such challenges or even worse ones than Joseph encountered.

Today’s lesson reveals to you and me the character of ‘the man of God’ that Joseph was. I like the way the Bible reveals Joseph’s story. What fascinates me is that it is recorded a number of times that “The LORD was with Joseph”. I have always wondered whether it wasn’t another way of saying “Joseph walked with God” as Enoch did! Maybe it was just the grace and favour of God on an unfortunate victim of other peoples’ jealousy and wickedness that “God was with him”, encouraging and strengthening him all the way!

Whatever it was, here was a man of God who experienced the goodness and kindness of God through a life of agony, insult and suffering. He had learned his lessons well through the ‘misfortunes’ God allowed and which he could endure because His God was with him. They took Joseph from ‘prison to throne’ and above all else enabled him to share in the character and will of God!

Hear those immortal words from the mouth of this ‘man of God’, Joseph, to his brothers who hated him to death and sold him to slavery but were now standing before him begging for food! “Do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.”

Do you see the Christ-likeness in Joseph? I hear in Joseph’s words, the prayer of the Lord Jesus on the cross to the father in the hearing of those who crucified Him, ‘Father forgive them for they do not know what they do to me!’ The apostle Peter, understanding the mystery of God’s will, told the Jews, “This man (Jesus) was handed over to you by God's set purpose and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross. But God raised him from the dead” (Acts 2.23,24).

O! that you and I might know the will of God in every situation, favourable and adverse, so that we could react like the Lord Jesus Christ and Joseph, with confidence in God and His purposes for us!

Pray and practise with me: Dear Lord Jesus who on the cross freely forgave those who crucified You, help me to understand that no man can thwart God’s plan. The good as well as the wicked will only serve God’s eternal plans for His own children! Dear Lord, enable me to hold on to God even in the most trying times. Help me also to be gracious like You and Joseph to forgive my offenders without grudge! Amen.