March 19, 2013
Central Truth
God calls us to repentance for our sins, which means turning away from past habits and toward the way God has laid out for us in Scripture.
"Now, therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the lad a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers." (Genesis 44:33)
18 Then Judah went up to him and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. 19 My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ 20 And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.’ 21 Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.’ 22 We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.’ 23 Then you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall not see my face again.’
24 When we went back to your servant my father, we told him the words of my lord. 25 And when our father said, ‘Go again, buy us a little food,’ 26 we said, ‘We cannot go down. If our youngest brother goes with us, then we will go down. For we cannot see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.’ 27 Then your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. 28 One left me, and I said, “Surely he has been torn to pieces,” and I have never seen him since. 29 If you take this one also from me, and harm happens to him, you will bring down my gray hairs in evil to Sheol.’
30 Now therefore, as soon as I come to your servant my father, and the boy is not with us, then, as his life is bound up in the boy's life, 31 as soon as he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will bring down the gray hairs of your servant our father with sorrow to Sheol. 32 For your servant became a pledge of safety for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, then I shall bear the blame before my father all my life.’ 33 Now therefore, please let your servant remain instead of the boy as a servant to my lord, and let the boy go back with his brothers. 34 For how can I go back to my father if the boy is not with me? I fear to see the evil that would find my father.”
Have you ever experienced déjà vu, the feeling of familiarity with your surroundings or circumstances? Long before the French coined that phrase, Joseph's brothers found themselves experiencing déjà vu while stuck in Egypt. They had the chance to risk the life of Benjamin, their younger brother, which they knew would devastate their father. If you remember from previous readings in Genesis, they had already committed the same mistake with Joseph.
Proverbs 26:11 tells us, "Like a dog that returns to its vomit is a fool who repeats his folly." Judah, who pleads with Joseph to let Benjamin return to Canaan, knew this truth. He was aware of the hurt that his past sin had caused and didn't want to return to that pain.
When we come to a relationship with Christ, several things happen. Among those, we are washed clean and rinsed from past sins. "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity by which they have sinned against Me, and I will pardon all their iniquities by which they have sinned against Me and by which they have transgressed against Me" (Jeremiah 33:8). Though we are free from the burden of sin, this does not remove the temptation to go back to our old, familiar habits.
Personally, this is true for me in the area of materialism. I can be tempted to return to liberal spending habits, accumulating more "stuff" that I don't truly need. The promise of 1 Corinthians 10:13, however, (get out your Bible and read it!) rings true for me as I know there is always a way of escape.
Judah and the rest of Joseph's brothers learned from their mistakes and did not wish to repeat them. My redeemed heart desires to avoid repeating past sinful patterns because I trust that God knows what is best for me and that His Word can be used as a guide for my life. My prayer for all reading this devo today is that you would experience the same freedom and that you would be bound to a God who loves and cares enough for His children to lead them in the everlasting way (Psalm 139:24).
1. Have you identified past sinful habits that you tend to run to instead of obedience in Christ?
2. Have you shared those habits with others who can hold you accountable to making wise choices that honor God?
3. If you haven't already, read 1 Corinthians 10:13 and Psalm 139:23-24. How can you use these verses in a way to guard against future temptation?