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God Sends Us for Life

Read Genesis 45:1-7

I have spent a great deal of time lately thinking about influence. Maybe it is a factor of the gray in my beard, but I have been wondering lately how many people I have influenced in my life. In my devotional time on Monday, I was spending some time being grateful. I try to discipline myself to write down three things I am grateful for each day. This cannot be something I have written down in the previous 30 days. After all, God’s mercies are new each day, right?

As I was thinking about influence, I thought about some people who have influenced my life. People like Ethel McQuiston – you’ve probably never heard of her. Rev. Herbert Livingston – him either. Dr. Charles Strickland, Dr. Hal Cauthron, Dr. Morris Weigelt, Dr. Paul Bassett, Mary Myers – my great-grandmother, who I never met. Each one of these people, and so many others, have something in common, at significant points in my life, often times when I was struggling greatly, these people spoke life into me.

In Genesis chapter 45 we have a passage of scripture with which we are all familiar. Joseph is confronting his brothers after years of slavery, imprisonment, separation, all manner of hurt done to him. Here in the first few verses of chapter 45 we see Joseph reveal himself to his brothers.

As I was meditating on this passage in my devotional time, I ran across this quote…The last phrase “to preserve life,” is an effort to render a simpler (as usual) Hebrew construction that might also be rendered as “to save lives” or “for sustenance.” However, it may be that the Septuagint version and its literal English counterpart, in their stark simplicity, make the point best: “God sent me before you for life [eis….zoein] (Feasting on the Word Year, C).

This thought hit me squarely between the eyes – on the same day – before I read this I praised God for a dozen or more people who have been road signs to God’s grace in my life.

Bear with me. Joseph had every right to be angry or bitter. Yet, he stood in front of his brothers and proclaimed God’s higher purpose to all that he had been through. Joseph had a clear sense that God used the events of his life to BE LIFE for his family. Joseph views the events of his life through a divine perspective. Whatever his brothers’ intentions, or the intentions of anyone else, God has been acting in Joseph’s life to bring life. God is a God of LIFE.

What each of those dozen or so people God brought to my mind had in common was that they were instruments of God to speak LIFE into my soul. At times when things were the bleakest, people who loved Jesus and who loved me became the conduit of life into a hurting person. They kept me going. They encouraged me in my walk. They were the reflections of God’s glory and love. They were the instruments of God’s life.

We are called and invited to be instruments of the life-giving love of God in our world, in our vocation, in our calling. Doesn’t Jesus say to us, I am the life? We who are followers are participants in that life, purveyors of the very life of Jesus Christ, in all we do.

It occurs to me as I look over the prayer list and prepare for this morning, we know people who are in desperate need of life, we might be the ones God chooses to use to bring that life.

This weekend, new classes of students will populate our virtual classrooms. My hunch is some of them may be in desperate need of a life transfusion.

It is so easy to get caught up in deadlines, in preparations, in all the things that go along with running a classroom or operating a college and lose sight of our primary call, we are called to be purveyors of the life of Jesus Christ, for our students, for our faculty colleagues, for the staff, for the world. There is no higher calling.

Here are two things I would like you to take away from our time together in the Word this morning.

God sends us into the worlds He has placed us to be life. He calls us to be life to our students.

God sends people into our life to be life to us. Find and open yourself to those people. Receive the life that is God’s gift to you.

 – Dr. Art Roxby serves as pastor of the Christ Center Wesleyan Church in Sedona, Arizona and as adjunct professor at NBC. 

Published: 02/21/2025

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