Seize the Moment – Day 441
The Abundant God!
Good morning! This is Pastor Jerry Ingalls from New Castle First Baptist Church and today is Tuesday, June 1.
There is a great turn of events in Genesis 45. Joseph, the ruler of Egypt, overcome with emotion announces to his brothers that he is their long-lost estranged brother. He offers reconciliation and then, in concert with Pharoah, showers gifts upon them. The brothers are being sent back to the Promised Land, not to stay, though, but to pick up their father and his household and to move everyone to Egypt, to the land of Goshen, for the five remaining years of famine.
Genesis 45:24 captures an interesting command by Joseph to his brothers, “So he sent his brothers away, and as they departed, he said to them, ‘Do not quarrel on the journey.’”
This got my attention because Paul warned believers in a similar way after he gave the promise of the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:26, “Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.”
Why is it necessary to warn both Joseph’s brothers and all Spirit-filled believers against quarrelling, boasting, challenging, and envying in the midst of receiving such blessings?
James 4:1-3 explains,
What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel. You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.
Seize the moment and be generous with all that God has entrusted to you for your good, remembering that all that you have is from His gracious hand for His glory. The secret to the abundant life is being generous with God’s grace, lavishly poured out on you by Jesus!