2009 - Day 31 - Grace to the Guilty

January 31, 2009 … Swindoll’s Topic for Today: Grace to the Guilty

Passage of the Day: Genesis 45: 1 – 8 … 1 Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. 2 And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it.3 Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. 4 And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. 5 But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. 6 For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. 7 And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. 8 So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.

My Journal for Today: Note the words I have highlighted in bold and red in today’s passage … “AND God” as well as ”BUT GOD!” In so many things in life, which turn things around in the face of human failure or seemingly impossible odds, we can only say, “BUT GOD did it” or “AND GOD was at work here.” Certainly this applies to the scenario involving Joseph and his brothers. I don’t think I need to remind you of the incredible place Joseph had found himself in the presence of his brothers who had sold him into slavery almost 20 years earlier. BUT GOD and His grace had intervened; and as we saw in the last two days, AND GOD had shown Joseph how His transforming grace had changed the brothers, especially their leader, Judah, who was quite obviously a changed man.

BUT GOD had also changed Joseph, who was tried by the fires of life in Egypt, … by the tests of temptation by Potiphar’s wife, … by the rigors of unjust imprisonment, … and by the elevation of power … to be in exactly this place in time, willing and able to say to his brothers [in verse 7 above], “AND GOD sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance.” And how revealing is this as a vertical perspective on life, as we studied from Genesis earlier this month? Really, I doubt if a better example could be found.

Do you have any BUT GOD instances or AND GOD stories in your life? I sure do. If one could have known me close to 30 years ago, a cynical agnostic who was deeply into a double life of habitual sexual sin; and then to compare that with my life now as a surrendered Christian who has been transformed to love and serve God as totally as I can. One would have to say, "ONLY GOD could do something like that in someone’s life.”

Like Joseph’s transformation and Judah’s transformation, mine is definitely an “AND GOD” alone story. It’s way above any set of human choices to come from where Judah, Joseph, and Bill Berry came in our lives. I’m certainly not trying to elevate myself to the status of a Joseph; but my story, like his, is definitely A GOD THING! And in such super-human stories, as humbly as I can reveal mine, as well a theirs in today’s passage, only God gets the glory – exactly as it should be!

I hope you’re now thinking of a “BUT GOD” or an “AND GOD” story from your life, thanking our Lord for where He has brought you in life; because, as Christians, we probably all have them; and we can all say, as our Genesis hero Joseph could say, … “TO GOD ALONE BE THE GLORY!”

My Prayer Today: Lord, You and You alone could take my life from then to now; and may it be only for Your glory. Amen