120126 - Genesis 43-44 - Judah goes from betrayer to willing substitute

Thursday SOAP: Judah goes from looking like Judas to looking like Christ. Judah was the very one who came up with the idea to sell Joseph into slavery for pieces of silver. Yet, all these years later, his love for his father causes him to offer himself to save his brother. Romans 8:29 reveals that God's work in us is to conform us to the image of Christ, that He might be firstborn among many brethren. It helps us to have this hope in us, to purify ourselves, even as He is pure, to know that even the betrayer can be transformed into the substitute.

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(Why "SOAP?" See http://www.enewhope.org/firststeps/journaling)
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S: Now therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide instead of the lad a bondman to my lord; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with me? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come on my father. (Ge 44:33-34).

O: Judah is willing himself to become a slave to save Benjamin. Yet it was Judah's idea to sell Joseph into slavery. (Gen. 37:26-27)

A: This is a picture of redemption. It seems as if real remorse had come to Judah in the intervening years. And Jacob's blessing on him seems to recognize this:

Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father's children shall bow down before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp: from the prey, my son, thou art gone up: he stooped down, he couched as a lion, and as an old lion; who shall rouse him up? The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come; and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto the choice vine; he washed his garments in wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes: His eyes shall be red with wine, and his teeth white with milk. (Ge 49:8-12).

Now it's Judah to whom Jacob's children will bow down. The royal line and ultimately Jesus Himself are pictured in this prophetic blessing.

P: Lord, your hand is seen any time an individual begins to look like Jesus. I pray it will be evident in my life.

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