Tag: Rachel

Categories
Ruth Devotionals

Redeemed

Ruth, Tamar, Leah, Rachel

May the Lord make the woman who is entering your house like Rachel and Leah, who together built the house of Israel…

May your house become like the house of Perez, the son Tamar bore to Judah, because of the offspring the Lord will give you by this young woman.” (Ruth 4:11-12)

This morning, I was thinking about Rachel, Leah, and Tamar. All three were broken in their own ways. (Genesis 29-30, 38)

And yet, none of them were ultimately remembered that way. They were remembered as blessed women.

Ruth too suffered brokenness in her life, and she is now remembered as blessed.

Not only that, all four women were used to bring our Redeemer into the world. All of them are in Jesus’ family tree.

And so God reminded me this morning, “You are not defined by your brokenness. I have redeemed you. And you are blessed.”

I was nothing before you found me.
You have given life to me.

Heartache, broken pieces,
Ruined lives are why you died on Calvary.

Your touch was what I longed for.
You have given life to me. — Bill and Gloria Gaither

Categories
12 Days of Christmas Devotionals

Tenth day of Christmas

grace

Then God remembered Rachel. He listened to her and opened her womb.

She conceived and bore a son, and she said, “God has taken away my disgrace.”

She named him Joseph and said, “May the Lord add another son to me.” (Genesis 30:22-24)

Joseph sound like the Hebrew for “he has taken away” but means “he adds.”

Just as God took way Rachel’s disgrace by giving her a son, he took away the disgrace of our sin by giving us his Son to die on the cross for our sins.

And now because of Jesus, he adds to us grace upon grace upon grace each and every day.

And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.

He erased the certificate of debt, with its obligations, that was against us and opposed to us, and has taken it away by nailing it to the cross. (Colossians 2:13-14)

Indeed, we have all received grace upon grace from his fullness. (John 1:16)

Categories
Genesis Devotions

For the insignificant and despised

Leah

It’s interesting to me that God chose Leah as the one through whom Jesus would ultimately be born.

Rachel was the “loved one.”

Leah was not.

Rachel was the beautiful one.

Leah was the homely one.

And yet God chose her instead of Rachel.

It reminds me of what Paul told the Corinthians.

Brothers and sisters, consider your calling: Not many were wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth.

Instead, God has chosen what is foolish in the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

God has chosen what is insignificant and despised in the world—what is viewed as nothing—to bring to nothing what is viewed as something… (1 Corinthians 1:26-28)

Why does God choose such people?

…so that no one may boast in his presence. (I Corinthians 1:29)

It is solely by God’s grace and Christ’s work that we are justified, sanctified, and redeemed. (I Corinthians 1:30)

And so, Paul concludes,

Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. (I Corinthians 1:31)

Ultimately, that’s what Leah did.

After her first three sons were born, you see her focusing on her wretched state, saying that she was afflicted, neglected, and unloved.

But after Judah was born, she turned her focus away from her wretched state, and instead turned her eyes to God, saying,  

This time I will praise the Lord (Genesis 29:35)

I find it only fitting then that Judah’s line was the one through whom Jesus came.

You might think of yourself as insignificant. As despised. But you are exactly the kind of person that God likes to pour his grace upon.

You are in fact the kind of person Jesus identifies with. According to Isaiah,

He didn’t have an impressive form
or majesty that we should look at him,
no appearance that we should desire him.

He was despised and rejected by men,
a man of suffering who knew what sickness was.

He was like someone people turned away from;
he was despised, and we didn’t value him.” (Isaiah 53:2-3)

But Jesus didn’t just come to identify with the despised and insignificant. He came to redeem them.

…he was pierced because of our rebellion,
crushed because of our iniquities;
punishment for our peace was on him,
and we are healed by his wounds. (Isaiah 53:5)

Christmas isn’t just for the happy, the loved, and the powerful.

Christmas is for people like Leah. It’s for people like you. It’s for people like me.

So with Leah, let us boast in the Lord, singing, “I will praise you Lord.”