Devotional 8-18-17

Scripture text is Genesis 45: 1-15

This scripture tells about Joseph in Egypt after gaining great power and influence with Pharaoh. Famine had reigned in the region for two years. Joseph's brothers had been sent to Egypt by their father, Jacob, in order to try to purchase food for their family, since their region was suffering also. Before this time period, Joseph had forecast the great famine and had prepared the Egyptians . Thus they had great storerooms of food to outlast the drought.

As we can recall, Joseph had arrived in Egypt previously because his brothers were jealous of him and sold him into slavery. They were totally unaware of whom they would encounter.Had they  known, do you think they would have ventured near him in fear of retribution? Joseph held their lives in his hands, to punish as severely as he wished.Let's look at some of the verses and see how the situation was handled.

3.And he said, I am your brother Joseph whom you sold into Egypt. And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me here before you to preserve life.....
He then goes on to tell them that God sent him to Egypt to save Jacob's family.

My gosh, this was the ultimate example of forgiveness. If we had been treated as Joseph had, could we possibly rationalize forgiving these scoundrels? In my case probably not.

As we go about our every day life we encounter so many things which lead us to believe we deserve revenge for these slights.

We must keep in mind what Jesus commands us to do in the Lord's Prayer: forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

If we are unable to forgive those who sin against us, we shouldn't be seeking forgiveness for our own misdeeds.

Heavenly Father, as we go through our daily lives, help us to remember and practice forgiveness as you have commanded.

Scott Ramsey

Devotional 10-21-16

Devotion comes from Luke 18:1-8

This is a story of a persistent widow and a hard hearted judge. He feared neither God nor man. The widow had a problem which the judge refused to solve. She tenaciously bombarded the judge until he caved, not because of fear or regard, but he just got worn down.

This tells me that whatever pursuit which we have, we must continue to attack the problem and not give up.

Years ago when I was fighting the nickel wars at INCO, problems would come up which had to solved. Early on, I gave up after a brief struggle. Later, after being battle hardened by many problems, I found out that not giving up solves a lot of problems.

A Consultant told us that one of our biggest problems is the lack of tenacity, that is, giving up too easily.

As we face our daily struggles in daily living and prayer life, we have to keep trying.

Of course some things are truly unattainable. I’ll never be as tall as Marv Jones or as smart as Gil Ratcliff. It would be foolish and a waste of time. However, every day I can strive to be a better Christian, friend, husband, and church member. Every day I have failures, but thank the Lord, I can get up in the morning and try again.

 A little poem a friend shared with me is titled; "Don't Quit". It gives the same message as the scripture.

When things go wrong as they sometimes will,

when the road you're trudging seems all uphill,

when the funds are low and the debts are high,

when you want to smile but you have to sigh,

when care is pressing you down a bit,

rest if you must BUT DON'T YOU QUIT.

Success is failure turned inside out,

the silver tint of the clouds of doubt.

you can never tell how close you are;

it may be near when it seems so far,

so stick to the fight when you're hardest hit,

it's when things seem worst that you must not quit.