Topic: From Sin to Redemption [David Jeremiah Devotional September 5 2019 | Turning Point Ministries]

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SEPTEMBER 5, 2019

Then they [Joseph’s brothers] said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us.”
Genesis 42:21

 Recommended Reading: James 1:2-4

As Paul wrote to the Galatians, we always reap what we sow (Galatians 6:7).  Because the brothers of Joseph sinned by selling him into slavery to Egypt, there would be a reckoning. Just as they sold Joseph into bondage, the brothers had to prostrate themselves in fear and anguish before the one they betrayed three decades earlier.

The consequences of sin aren’t solely retributive; they are meant to be redemptive as well. Writing about the trials we experience in life—even the trials of our own making—the apostle James wrote that they can produce perseverance. And the purpose of perseverance is to produce maturity in our life (James 1:2-4). That was the result in Joseph’s brothers’ lives when they discovered that Joseph was still alive and was a ruler in Egypt. They repented of their sin and were r-united with the one they had tried to be rid of.

When trials appear in your life, let them do their redemptive work. The path to spiritual maturity is paved with stones of repentance.

None of us can come to the highest maturity without enduring the summer heat of trials. 
Charles H. Spurgeon