The Reading Plan Daily Devotions

We all know the extraordinary story of Joseph. God had given Joseph a dream that prophesied his family would all bow down to him one day. His brothers didn't like this thought and plotted a way to get rid of him.   First, they threw him into a pit to leave him to die. Then, they relented and sold him into slavery. Potiphar, the Egyptian, bought him, but soon he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. It just seemed like Joseph could not get ahead. But, in each of these places, God prospered him because "The Lord was with Joseph, so he became a successful man." (Genesis 39:2)   We have no record of this, but at the lowest points of his life—in the pit, in slavery, and the Egyptian prison, Joseph must have had some thoughts that God had forgotten him and that God's promises to him would never be fulfilled.    But when was the promised accomplished?  When he was raised to honor before Pharoah? No, it was always being fulfilled! Each of these circumstances ...

It's deadly. When jealousy enters a human heart, it will always burn and destroy not only the jealous man but those around him. Nowhere is this seen more than in the lives of Joseph's brothers.   A PARTIAL DAD   Israel bore some of the responsibility for what happened. He "loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age." It was so apparent that "his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers."    Of all places, the home should be a place where there is no prejudice, where no one is preferred over another. This uneven love will pierce the soul of a child, as it did Israel's sons.   ANGRY BROTHERS   Joseph had a dream from God. Instead of being able to rejoice with him, their latent jealousy responded in further hatred. Notice the progressive jealousy and anger in the brothers in Genesis 37.   So they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms. (verse 4) So they hated him even more. (verse ...

We are notorious forgetters. God moves and provides for us daily. And then, there are those extraordinary moments when He encounters us. But in light of this growing number of experiences of God’s goodness, is there ever-increasing gratitude and worship? BACK TO BETHEL   Jacob is an example. God met him at critical junctures, but none more life-altering than the encounter at Bethel. God was so anxious for Jacob never to forget this that He instructed him to move there and make an altar.   Genesis 35 1 Then God said to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel and live there, and make an altar there to God, who appeared to you when you fled from your brother Esau.” 2 So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, “Put away the foreign gods which are among you, and purify yourselves and change your garments; 3 and let us arise and go up to Bethel, and I will make an altar there to God, who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I have gone.” ...

Your conscience is that part of you that knows you deeply. The word "conscience" means a "knowing with" or "self-knowledge." This is the part of you where God protects you from wrong choices, but also convicts you when you sin. When we have sinned against someone, the Bible has a very clear process for resolution. Jesus commanded this in Matthew 5:23-24, and the account of Jacob in the Old Testament illustrates the beauty and rightness of this approach. JACOB’S PAST Jacob had deceived and cheated his brother out of his birthright and blessing. Esau was not innocent in this encounter also because he had vowed to kill his brother. Years went by, and now Jacob, married and prosperous, was told by God to return to Israel. But along the way, his worst nightmare came to pass … he encountered his brother, the one he had wronged years before. Genesis 32 6 The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother Esau, and furthermore he is coming to ...

And she conceived again and bore a son and said, “This time I will praise the LORD.” Therefore she named him Judah. ( Genesis 29:35 )   We are sinful. Not hard to illustrate, is it? When Christ comes to live in us through His work of salvation and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, all the capacity for transformation from our sinfulness is there. We have Christ in His fullness within us. The issue is learning to let Him lead from the inside out. NOT MY WILL, BUT THINE BE DONE But the problem is our will. This is the part of us that decides. For years we have been self-willed. Without Christ, there is nowhere else to turn so we have decided what to do at every spot on our own. We have become accustomed to doing what we want to do, not deferring to Another.   This will must be progressively broken, like a horse is broken, and brought more and more into submission to the will of God once we become true followers of Christ. But this problem is humbling and painful at times, for ou...

Jacob was the son of Isaac and the grandson of Abraham. Abraham had been given the great, covenantal promise from God that God would bless him and make of him a great nation that would bless the world. God repeated and confirmed this promise to Abraham at least 6 times ( Genesis 12:1-7 ;   13:14-17 ;    15:1-6 ;   17:1-8 ,   15-16 ;   22:16-18 ). And Abraham believed God. On several of those occasions, upon receiving the promise Abraham built an altar and called upon the Lord. Once, he gave a tithe (10%) to the priest, Melchezidek. ISSAC   Later, God would revisit that same promise, very personally to Abraham's son, Isaac ( Genesis 26:3-4 ,   24 ). Isaac built an altar at the spot where this occurred.   JACOB Now, we come to Isaac's son, Jacob in Genesis, Chapter 28. He is traveling to Haran to find an Israelite wife. He lays his head down to sleep and has an extraordinary dream of a ladder to heaven with angels going up and down. The Lord wa...