#DailyDevotion Good Doesn’t Need Evil
Lent day 26 Thursday
Read Gen 45:1–20, 24–28
Gen 45:4-8 So Joseph said to his brothers, “Come near to me, please.” And they came near. And he said, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. (5) And now do not be distressed or angry with yourselves because you sold me here, for God sent me before you to preserve life. (6) For the famine has been in the land these two years, and there are yet five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvest. (7) And God sent me before you to preserve for you a remnant on earth, and to keep alive for you many survivors. (8) So it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.
You just never know how God is going to turn your life around. Whether you have done evil or have been the victim of it, it is all in God’s hands. It is in God’s hands for God’s purposes. Now that can be a scary thing or a good thing depending on your view of your relationship with God.
Joseph’s brothers until they get the view the plan at hindsight see their evil now as a good thing or rather how God has turned it into a good thing. You rarely want to be the one perpetrating the evil in the normal scheme of thing, just in case you’re wondering, just look ahead to the next book in the Bible to what happens to Pharoah. But for God’s people in Christ Jesus it all pans out.
We have the promise, Rom 8:28 “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” And how do we know we have been called according to his purpose? By his choosing. How do you know you are chosen? By the rite of baptism. In Baptism, you know God has placed his name, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit on you. There he has placed you into his Son, Jesus. Rom. 6:3ff
If you are in Christ then all things are working out for your good and the good of His Church. We don’t always see it at times. It may take 450-2000 years (just read the Bible history from Israel’s entrance to Egypt to the crucifixion of Jesus) but the good that God intends will not be frustrated. I think this is because despite the bad guys line in every good movies, “You can’t exist without me!” they have it backwards. Evil cannot exist without good because evil is just a perversion of the good like rust on a nail. The nail is perfectly happy and can exist without the rust. Whatever evil there is it depends upon goodness for its existence. God being the ultimate good simply removes the evil from that which being perverted and whala! The good that was supposed to be there is there. But Tarnex won’t do the job. It takes the blood of Jesus and the cross to remove it.
Lord grant us faith to believe that while we cannot see the good you are going to work from evil or good, that you will indeed keep your promise to work all things together for our good. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.