BSF Genesis Week 31 – The Notes are Good

BSF Genesis: Week 31, Day 5

Questions:

11.
God will come to your aid and be true to promise ==> go home

12.
a.
God will come to aid, take my bones

b.
Ex 13:19 Moses took Joseph’s bones, Joshua 24:34 Joseph buried in the cave in Canaan

13.
God will come to your aid

My Daily Journal:

I know many people find comfort in the words of Genesis 50:24 that God will come to your aid. But, as a husband, father and provider to my family, church and community I find special promise in these words and a comfort, a real lifting of a burden through these words.

I want to provide for those I love. I want to protect them and care for them. I want to serve them and model the love of God to them. But how do you continue to do that after you die. There is, obviously, financial planning that should take place and seeds that are planted throughout the years, but how can you possibly know if the best laid plans will be enough?

But, the reassurance that God will come to their aid is a huge relief. And, as it was when the Holy Spirit was sent after Christ left, this verse tells me that there is actually a special outpouring of blessing that God will send to the ones I love and care for to specifically fill the void that would otherwise be present with my inevitable passing some day. What a powerful and reassuring promise!

BSF Genesis: Week 31, Day 4

Today’s Scriptures

Questions:

8.
a.
Worried that with Jacob dead Joseph would turn and payback for the wrongs they did to him. So, they sent word (lie?) that Jacob told him to forgive them – Joseph wept and told them to not be afraid, he would not judge them but instead would provide for them and their children. He reassured them and spoke kindly to them

b.
Wept. Received them. Spoke reasuring words to them

c.
God works all to His good. No matter what, God is in control

9.
a.
1 John 1:9, if we confess our sins he will forgive us & purify us, Eph 1:7 in him we have redemption… the forgiveness of sins John 6:1-14 Christ provides (feeding 5000) John 14:2, my Father’s house has many rooms. Luke 23:43 today paradise

b.
confession, repententance, grateful acceptance of the gift of grace

c.
As an earthly father and teacher I try to protect and provide for my family and those in my care. I teach them through words and modeling biblical values, worship and confession.

10.
a.
To save Israel from itself, from its sinful past, from intermarriage with canaanites and from famine

b. (Note: I answered this challenge question in light of what the bible says disciples of Christ are called to do):
2Tim 2:15, learn his word, 1 peter 5:7 pray, Eph 5:22-6:4 serve each other as family, Col 3:18 do all work for God, Acts 20:35 help the weak, more blessed to give, Act 8:4 preach the word wherever you go

My Daily Journal:

This was one of my favorite sections of our study this week. After Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers get afraid. They decide to take the approach with their brother that I’ve seen my own kid’s take. They decided to “play the Dad card.” “Dad said you have to forgive us…”

But Joseph’s response was amazing. In response to the Dad card, Joseph plays the Big Dad card. Instead of stepping into the middle of things and giving his own forgiveness, Joseph redirects them to God. Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? God has already used everything you did for His good. What is there to forgive that hasn’t been forgiven? Don’t be afraid.

His brothers sought simply get out of the hole they had dug for themselves. Joseph doesn’t just bring them back to where they were before, but he elevates them. He doesn’t just say I won’t punish you. He says I will take care of you and provide for you and your children. What a model and reflection of our loving God! When we dig ourselves into a hole, we repent and ask Him to help us get out of the hole. Instead of just restoring us, he lifts us up to a better place, a place in His kingdom, and eternal home.

On the flip side of this is the lesson and reminder of just how difficult it is for us, like Joseph’s brothers, to accept forgiveness. We repent, we ask God to forgive us and He does. But we don’t. Instead of learning from and moving on, we keep reliving our past transgressions. Instead of leaving them at the foot of the cross, we keep going back and picking them up, only to repent of them again and again. But, God really does forgive. Psalm 103:12 says, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” This is a challenge for me. I’m one who, while I know God has forgiven me, I haven’t always forgiven myself, and that baggage can hinder my ability to move forward into the sanctification to which I (like all believers) am called. That is one of the reasons this was such a powerful and personal lesson to me.

BSF Genesis: Week 31, Day 3

Today’s Scriptures

Questions:

6.
Pharaoh honored him by the entourage he sent to his graveside. Dignitaries of his court, all the dignitaries of Egypt, Chariots and horsemen, a very large company, so great the the Canaanites renamed the place to mourning of the Egyptians. Only Hebrew children and livestock left behind.

7.
a.
The size and scale and the mourning that occurred at the threshing floor of Atad

b.
v12. Did as he commanded them, carried him, buried him.

c.
We are aliens here – our citizenship is in heaven. We have been saved through Christ.

My Daily Journal:

Jacob was a mirror who reflected God. When the bible says God is the God of Israel or the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, it does not mean these men owned God. It means that they reflected God for others to see.

Jacob reflected God in his prayer life. He reflected God in His trust of God’s word. He reflected God in his willingness to speak truth (especially in his later years). He reflected God in his blessings (which were actually God’s blessings). He reflected God in and through his children and especially through Joseph.

When pharoah send a very large company, chariots, horsemen; when he sent all the riches of Egypt; when he provided the royal embalmers; when the Egyptians mourned at the threshing floor; when the Egyptians stayed with the Israelite children and flocks so their parents could all go back to Canaan (even though they found shepherds detestable)… When all of these things occurred they reflected directly through Jacob back to God, His God, The God of Israel.

When we go to a funeral and participate in eulogies today it is the same thing. When a christian has spent their life reflecting the glory of God, there is absolutely nothing wrong with spending some time reflecting on that reflection! The glory is not going to the individual, it is going to the source of the light that they helped shine.

BSF Genesis: Week 31, Day 2

Today’s Scriptures

Questions:

3.
a.
No. He spent his last breath blessing others. He looked forward to being gathered to his people, pulled his feet up into his bed and died

b.
God is the God of Jacob – He is not the God of the dead but of the living – Jacob is experiencing eternal life

4.
a.
H.
people are destined to die once and after that to face judgment

R.
All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, Wages of sin are death but the gift of God is eternal life

J5.
Whoever hears word and believes God has eternal life, will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life

J8.
told that you would die in yoru sins, if don’t believe then you will indeed die in your sins

J11.
Whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?

b.
Spiritually ready and confident. I believe there is still work for me to do here and more lives to touch and shepherd

5.
Honored the promise he made to his father. Sought Pharaoh’s blessing.

My Daily Journal:

Death. Until Christ comes again and calls us up to Him in heaven, we are all going to die. Death is a doorway we all must cross through.

For a few years I had the opportunity to work with a motivational speaker who used board breaking in coaching and leading people. The piece of pine represented a barrier to the individual, something that prevented them from “breaking through” to a higher level or better place. One of the key things that he taught, and which I saw to be true, was that the more you focus on the board, the harder it is to break. You don’t try to hit the board, you pick a focus point beyond the board and strike to it. You don’t focus on the barrier, your focus on what things look like beyond the barrier.

The challenge for us is that we tend to focus on the door more than what’s on the other side when it comes to death. Some might say that we don’t know what is on the other side, but I disagree. While the door may be a solid door, Christ has provided a window for us to look through. He tells us that “in My father’s house there are many mansions, if it were not so, I would have told you.” He tells us that upon death “Today you will be with me in paradise.” We know from Revelation that heaven is a real place, measurable, with walls of jasper and city of pure gold. But, most importantly, we know it is where God is and where we go to be with Him. This was revealed in the martyrdom of Stephen when he saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God in heaven. Jesus tells us about God and Heaven over and over again. I am the way… no one comes to the Father but by me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who believes in me shall not perish but have eternal life.

When Christ came back from the dead he showed that death has no hold over us. There need be no uncertainty of what is on the other side of the door of death, Christ has shown us. We, like Jacob need to be willing to trust in Him and put our focus on the beauty of breaking through to the other side, not on the door. When we focus on death, we bang in to something hard and difficult and painful, just like when someone would focus on the board, they would bang into the board. Instead, we must focus on the life after death and break through death in joy and celebration.