What God wants most from us is not offerings of money, doing good works, or obeying all the laws and traditions of the land.  What God wants most is us.  He wants us to love him back without conditions.  God wants us to stop making bargains with Him.  He wants us to come to Him, commune with Him daily, hear Him and stop trying to manipulate God with offerings only meant to pacify our almighty God for the purpose of getting what we want—or think we need. 

God wants us to know Him, really know Him with a heart that empties of self so it can be filled with the love of God.  God wants us.  God loved us before we were born.  God loves each one of us now.  We are always on God’s mind.  God is for us, not against us.  God knows us better than we know ourselves and he still loves us.  “…God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. (Romans 5:8)

God also knew we would need a Savior to redeem us from our sins.  He knew we could not continue our lives without Him.  We are lost without His forgiveness of our sins that weigh us down, hinder our growth, hamper our relationships with Him and with others, and keep us bound up and restrained with fear and anxiousness.  Because God so loved, He gave us His Son to save us and set us free!  Jesus, God in flesh, came to seek and to save the lost.  He came to serve, not to be served.  He represented and demonstrated who God is with how to love Him back.

God will soon reveal and demonstrate what He has done in the life of Joseph to his long-lost brothers.  Joseph wants to reveal who he is to his brothers but he waits for God.  Joseph is so moved and overcome with emotion at seeing Benjamin the youngest, born to his mother, Rachel, that he must leave the room to get himself together!  We ask ourselves, is Joseph grieving over the past hurts while rejoicing over being reunited with his brothers, especially Benjamin?  We would imagine this moment of meeting is bittersweet.  Joseph has been dreaming of this moment and now the time has come.  What will happen next?

Genesis 43

The Second Journey to Egypt

Now the famine was still severe in the land. ² So when they had eaten all the grain they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go back and buy us a little more food.”

³ But Judah said to him, “The man warned us solemnly, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’ ⁴ If you will send our brother along with us, we will go down and buy food for you. ⁵ But if you will not send him, we will not go down, because the man said to us, ‘You will not see my face again unless your brother is with you.’”

⁶ Israel asked, “Why did you bring this trouble on me by telling the man you had another brother?”

⁷ They replied, “The man questioned us closely about ourselves and our family. ‘Is your father still living?’ he asked us. ‘Do you have another brother?’ We simply answered his questions. How were we to know he would say, ‘Bring your brother down here’?”

⁸ Then Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy along with me and we will go at once, so that we and you and our children may live and not die. ⁹ I myself will guarantee his safety; you can hold me personally responsible for him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him here before you, I will bear the blame before you all my life. ¹⁰ As it is, if we had not delayed, we could have gone and returned twice.”

¹¹ Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be, then do this: Put some of the best products of the land in your bags and take them down to the man as a gift—a little balm and a little honey, some spices and myrrh, some pistachio nuts and almonds. ¹² Take double the amount of silver with you, for you must return the silver that was put back into the mouths of your sacks. Perhaps it was a mistake. ¹³ Take your brother also and go back to the man at once. ¹⁴ And may God Almighty grant you mercy before the man so that he will let your other brother and Benjamin come back with you. As for me, if I am bereaved, I am bereaved.”

¹⁵ So the men took the gifts and double the amount of silver, and Benjamin also. They hurried down to Egypt and presented themselves to Joseph. ¹⁶ When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Take these men to my house, slaughter an animal and prepare a meal; they are to eat with me at noon.”

¹⁷ The man did as Joseph told him and took the men to Joseph’s house. ¹⁸ Now the men were frightened when they were taken to his house. They thought, “We were brought here because of the silver that was put back into our sacks the first time. He wants to attack us and overpower us and seize us as slaves and take our donkeys.”

¹⁹ So they went up to Joseph’s steward and spoke to him at the entrance to the house. ²⁰ “We beg your pardon, our lord,” they said, “we came down here the first time to buy food. ²¹ But at the place where we stopped for the night we opened our sacks and each of us found his silver—the exact weight—in the mouth of his sack. So we have brought it back with us. ²² We have also brought additional silver with us to buy food. We don’t know who put our silver in our sacks.”

²³ “It’s all right,” he said. “Don’t be afraid. Your God, the God of your father, has given you treasure in your sacks; I received your silver.” Then he brought Simeon out to them.

²⁴ The steward took the men into Joseph’s house, gave them water to wash their feet and provided fodder for their donkeys. ²⁵ They prepared their gifts for Joseph’s arrival at noon, because they had heard that they were to eat there.

²⁶ When Joseph came home, they presented to him the gifts they had brought into the house, and they bowed down before him to the ground. ²⁷ He asked them how they were, and then he said, “How is your aged father you told me about? Is he still living?”

²⁸ They replied, “Your servant our father is still alive and well.” And they bowed down, prostrating themselves before him.

²⁹ As he looked about and saw his brother Benjamin, his own mother’s son, he asked, “Is this your youngest brother, the one you told me about?” And he said, “God be gracious to you, my son.” ³⁰ Deeply moved at the sight of his brother, Joseph hurried out and looked for a place to weep. He went into his private room and wept there.

³¹ After he had washed his face, he came out and, controlling himself, said, “Serve the food.”

³² They served him by himself, the brothers by themselves, and the Egyptians who ate with him by themselves, because Egyptians could not eat with Hebrews, for that is detestable to Egyptians. ³³ The men had been seated before him in the order of their ages, from the firstborn to the youngest; and they looked at each other in astonishment. ³⁴ When portions were served to them from Joseph’s table, Benjamin’s portion was five times as much as anyone else’s. So they feasted and drank freely with him.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Ah, we are left with cliffhanger!  Yes, there’s much more to come!  Having a good meal together is not the ultimate goal!  But for now, let’s go over the details of how God is at work, moving in the lives of people.

God moved Jacob to let go of Benjamin for the greater good of getting through a famine.

God moved Judah’s heart.  Judah knew what they must do—obey what Joseph said they must do without knowing what Joseph really wanted.  Judah is willing to risk his life to go back, willing to take responsibility for his brother Benjamin, as well as honor his father’s command to take peace offerings to sweeten the deal for more grain. 

God moved all the brothers to go back with Judah leading them.

God moved Joseph’s heart.  Joseph, who sons were named because the memory of hurt was so great.  Manasseh, the name of his first-born son means; “remember it no more.”  And now, the source of that pain is sitting at his table!  Yes, God moved Joseph from resentment and bitterness on a path to forgiveness and reconciliation with his brothers. God healed Joseph’s wounds and moved him to love his brothers—all of them.

God moves our hearts, renews our minds, and refreshes our souls with forgiveness that is given quickly and freely because of His relentless, unending, never changing love for us.  God offers mercy and grace right in the middle of our mess.  All we must do is come to the Table with a repentant heart.  It is then that the feast of Living Water and the Bread of Life is served!  We are filled forever all because of His love, mercy, and grace demonstrated though Jesus, His Son, who sealed the deal of our salvation.  We thirst and hunger no more because we have found the Source of forgiveness—Jesus!

Pause to reflect and pray—

When people wrong us, we often turn to retaliation rather than forgiveness and restoration. But we must trust in God’s plan to set us free.  God sees a Joseph in each one of us. “Forgive as I have forgiven you,” says our Savior.  “Freely give as I have freely given to you!” (Matthew 10) 

Then as a follow-up, Jesus explains complete forgiveness in a sermon to thousands gathered on a mountainside: “For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.” Matthew 6:14-15  Notice there is no offerings to sweeten reconciliation or a manipulative plan to coerce forgiveness—just forgive, honestly and completely forgive as God forgave us.  (Ephesians 4:32)

We have experienced the pit of despair.  We have landed in jails of discontent.  It is then that God speaks to us; “Come, sit with Me.”  What will our answer be?  But Lord, you don’t know what they have said about me and done to me!  Or will we pray what Jesus taught us to pray?  “God forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Trust God. No, really trust Him. He will get us through it all. He always has and always will because he loves all of us and wants His best for us.  Will it be easy or quick? We hope so, but rarely is. Yet God will make good out of the mess we created; while molding and shaping us to be more like Him.  Because that’s HIS work..

Many in our world, including us, are broken by the “un’s”; unrighteousness, unkindness, unmerciful, undone by unholiness.  How can we be instruments of God’s peace that brings hope and love to the hurting and oppressed?  Forgive as Jesus has forgiven us.  Tell the world who He is and what He has done!   We will discover changes in us as we follow Jesus.  This transformation comes from the power of His Holy Spirit within us, guiding us to all Truth.  We find ourselves quicker to forgive, more kind, showing more mercy, demonstrating more love—all because Jesus is more than enough who lives in us!

Lord,

You have moved my thoughts to places that call me to repentance seeking to forgive as you have forgiven me.  Thank you for cleansing our hearts through your Word that removes the unclean thoughts of the world around us.  Thank you for renewing our minds with higher, greater, more holy thinking. Thank you for refreshing our souls with your daily, fresh new mercies. Thank you for restoring the joy of your salvation at work within us.  To you be the glory!  Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

In Jesus Name, Amen