A Devotional Though From Genesis

But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.     Genesis 50:20

                Certainly when the brothers of Joseph hated him as a young man, and planned his murder, and relented to sell them in the slavery, because they hated their own brother, no thinking person could see how that would be good, or considered good for Joseph, or the perpetrators. Without doubt these jealous and hateful brothers meant what they did to be an evil thing for their brother, a hurtful thing, something that brought him low and made his life miserable. Had you interviewed them at the time and had they been honest, they never would have thought that Joseph would overcome, that good would come despite the evil that he was facing. Evaluating Joseph’s circumstances most people would have probably thought “ How would that even be possible?” We learn the answer to that question here in the last chapter of Genesis were Joseph said “ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good.” The Lord God of heaven and earth is sovereign. He uses situations, and circumstances, whether good or bad to bring about his purposes in this world.

                Looking ahead this month to the celebration of Easter, the same thought can be applied to the passion. How could anyone viewing the hatred of religious leaders toward Jesus, the fickleness of the people who cried to crucify him, the bloody nails driven by the Roman soldiers through his hands and his feet, and the terrible, torturous, ignominious death upon the cross be seen as anything good. Wouldn’t those who do not know God consider the term Good Friday a misnomer? How could good come out of the evil of the cross? Because the sovereign Lord God meant it unto good.

 His enemies meant the cross to destroy Him, God meant the cross to destroy sin and death. As the risen Christ stood before the world in His living glory He could have used Joseph’s words “But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive.”