3.076 How Time Changes Us

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as savory salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose ye this day whom you will serve.

My friends, how has time changed you? What has time done for you? Or has time done it to you?

These are some deep questions and I don't know that I'm going to answer them completely, but I'm going to give you something to think about inside of our reading today. We're reading this week Genesis chapters 42 through 50 as we continue with the, let's call it the adventure of Joseph reuniting with his brothers and his family. There's some interplay back and forth here.

You're going to have to read the story in your scriptures as I always encourage you to do. This is not a replacement for your own scripture study. This is an enhancement, I hope.

I hope inside of the story here we seem to get a moment where we get to see someone change in a roundabout way. Let's take a look at the verse and see if we can put this together a little bit. We're going to look in Genesis chapter 44 today in verse 33, the tail end of the chapter.

This is Judah talking to Joseph. Joseph has demanded that his little brother, the youngest of all of them, Benjamin, be taken. We have this conversation with Judah and Joseph that I think is very insightful as to what time has done to Judah.

Verse 33 says this, this is the middle of Judah talking here. He says, 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. Now, out of context, you might not understand what he's saying there because it is the biblical talk there.

But Judah is offering himself up as a servant to Joseph rather than Benjamin. Does that seem like the perspective of a brother who would sell his brother into slavery? Now it's been 20 plus years, but we seem to get a little window, maybe even just a little doorway, into the inner workings of Judah here.

He is willing to send himself into servitude here rather than his little brother Benjamin because of the feelings that he has for his dad Jacob and the situation going at play here. My friends, I have found this to be true in my life. Time can change us and it can change us in two ways.

I'm not sure that I buy into the idea that time heals all because what I've seen is two sides of that coin. If over time you have focused on the ways that you've been lied to, cheated, stolen from, then that only seems to dig deeper and deeper into your soul over the years. That doesn't seem to be what Judah's experiencing here.

Instead, it appears that Judah, while realizing what has happened with Joseph 20 plus years ago, has changed his perspective. He is now willing, rather than getting rid of a brother, he seems willing here to trade his own life for his brother's. Now there's all sorts of great illustration here on the life of Jesus Christ coming from the stem of Judah.

This is cool right here if you're getting this context. But focus on Judah here. What has time done for him?

My friends, time can change us. I hope that you can see the changes here not just with Joseph but also with the brothers. That's all for today, my friends.

You and I have come here for such a time as this. Step forward in faith and let's be savory salt. We will be here tomorrow and we hope you are too.