Read Genesis 12.1-9, 37.1-5. God’s plan to rescue, redeem and bless His rebellious world would happen through Abraham’s family. As you read these two accounts, how do you see God at work in bringing forth His redemption plan?
Of all things God could choose to use in His redemption plan, why does He choose to use family? Why this family? Why your family?
How do you sense God at work in your family in bringing about His plan of redemption of our neighborhood?
Read Genesis 33 and answer the following questions:
- What’s the source of the tension between Jacob and his brother Esau?
- How does Jacob respond to seeing his brother arrive?
- Jacob divides his family and the text makes a point to highlight the position of each family. What does this tell you about Jacob?
- How does Esau ultimately respond to his brother?
- How have you experienced relational reconciliation in your life? Where might there still be relational disconnect in your family? How is God leading you and loving you in that place of disconnect?
Reread Genesis 37.3-4. How do you relate or resonate with this text?
If you could title the current chapter of your story, what would the title be?
While we only see our current chapter, and we can see those chapters behind, only God sees the chapters ahead. Where do you sense a desire to grow in trust of today’s chapter, your past chapters, and the chapters to come?
Read Matthew 1.1-6. The genealogy of Jesus includes Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but it’s not through Joseph’s line that the Messiah comes, rather from Judah. In thinking about the full story of Genesis 37, how do you see God at work in choosing Judah to be the one through Him Messiah would come? What’s the significance of that dynamic in God’s story, and your story?
Read and reflect on the following statement, “God approaches us in our nakedness to bring us joy, not to express His disappointment in us. His heart is to exchange our ashes for beauty, our mourning for joy, and our despair for praise (see Isaiah 61:3). There is no shame so deep that the love of God cannot reach it. There is no story He cannot redeem. The paradox of the gospel is that our failures do not condemn us; they connect us.” Sexually Redeemed: Learning to rest in the finished work of the cross.
Read and reflect on 1 Peter 2.9. Spend some time entrusting yourself, and your family into His hands.
