JANUARY 28 READING…GENESIS 48-49 & MATTHEW 22
We all have great hopes and plans for our children and for those we love. We also have great hopes for those we share the Gospel with. These hopes don’t always come to pass, truth be told, in those moments of clarity and honesty, we know that many of them never will. Today’s theme is honesty, even in those things we would hope for others. Jacob was coming to the end of his life, the Lord gives him clarity of truth as he blesses the sons of Joseph, and as Jacob speaks over his own sons. Jacob reverses the order of blessings over the sons of Joseph, and when Joseph attempted to correct his father, Jacob assured Joseph that he knew what he was doing. Then Jacob spoke over his own sons with complete truth and honesty. I am sure he had hoped to speak nothing but good things over his sons, but it would not be possible. This is not because of Jacob’s hopes, but because of the kind of men his sons were. Some received good words from their father, some receive words that seemed harsh and without hope. Jacob could only speak the truth. Listen, sometimes we don’t want to deal in truth with our own family, but we must, for we do them no favors by pacifying them with false words.
In Matthew 22 Jesus continues to deal with the religious leaders of Israel, always in truth. They certainly did not like the truth the Lord was speaking into their lives, for it was contrary to what they had established for themselves. They had fooled themselves that their little religious kingdom they had created was somehow acceptable to God, and made them better than the “common” people who they ruled over. Jesus spoke to them the truth of the greatest of the commandments of God, the two upon which the whole of the law was based. They had lost this truth in their religious confusion. In their religious blindness they missed their own scripture and prophesies about Messiah. Jesus gave them the truth, they chose to reject that truth, and would conspire to kill the truth…they would not be successful.
Please share your thoughts.
TOMORROW’S READING…GENESIS 50 & EXODUS 1 & MATTHEW 23
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