Does God Have Favorites?

Hello Everyone,

Have you ever had those moments in your life when God was hard to figure out? We know God is Sovereign and fully in control. We know “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD, And He (God) delights in his way”. (Ps. 37:23)

But what is this latest surprise all about anyway?
When negative things happen to us, when our expectations are left twisted from the storm, when we are crushed by pressures we don’t understand.

This is the time we want to say to God, “This just does not make sense. I’ve put faith in Jesus Christ; I am a child of the King. So why is all this happening? God, what are you doing?

In his farewell speech to the people of Israel, Joshua brought up just such an occasion. He began by reviewing Israel’s national heritage:

Joshua 24:2-4 2 Joshua said to all the people, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Long ago your forefathers, including Terah the father of Abraham and Nahor, lived beyond the River and worshiped other gods. 3 But I took your father Abraham from the land beyond the River and led him throughout Canaan and gave him many descendants. I gave him Isaac, 4 and to Isaac I gave Jacob and Esau. I assigned the hill country of Seir to Esau, but Jacob and his sons went down to Egypt.

Jacob was the chosen one. It was through him, not his brother Esau that the promised blessing of abundant descendents in a special land would continue.

If that promise was true, why did Esau get the hill country of Seir while Jacob and his family went to Egypt-away from the promise land?

Seir (southwest Jordan on modern maps) was a lot better deal than having to go down to Egypt, where slavery was waiting Jacob’s family.

So why did his family get the short end of the stick?
Isaiah records this in chapter 55:8-9:
8 "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. 9 "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
We have to keep reminding ourselves of this when things don’t make sense on the surface.
I want to declare to you to take courage: The things that happen in all our lives have several benefits we usually don’t see at first.
We will be looking at a few of these benefits this week.

Oh How He Loves Us!
Pastor Phil