My Amazement of Joseph
Gen 45:4-8
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! 5And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. 6For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will not be plowing and reaping. 7But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
8“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.

I am amazed each time I read this passage of scripture where Joseph reassures his brothers (still in semi-shock) that he has no hard feelings, but feels God has overruled their evil plot so as to guarantee Israel that they will indeed be a great nation. Joseph's ability to forgive is but one part, but to have developed the spiritual maturity to understand that all the horrific circumstances in which he faced was only in the bigger plan of God to save the nation of Israel through the suffering of this one man.

However, God's love and plan spread much deeper and wider than even Joseph would have imagined in that through one man, God's Son Jesus, the whole world could be spared due justice by such suffering.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (Jn 3:16-18)

The sacrifice has been made and the forgiveness issued. Do you believe? Have you been saved from eternal torment by the forgiveness of your sins by God's sacrifice, Jesus Christ? Do you understand the depth of His sacrifice, pain, and love? Trust today in the One who came to seek and save that which was lost... you and I!