THE DANGER OF FAVORITISM    

                Joseph  

Now [Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age.
Genesis 37:3

 

Scripture:  GENESIS 35:23-26 “23 the sons of Leah were Reuben, Jacob’s firstborn, and Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun; 24 the sons of Rachel were Joseph and Benjamin; 25 the sons of Bilhah, Rachel’s maidservant, were Dan and Naphtali; 26 and the sons of Zilpah, Leah’s maidservant, were Gad and Asher. These were the sons of Jacob who were born to him in Padan Aram..”

COMMENTS:  The family unit is God’s creation and design.  But it is not God’s purpose or design for the family unit, nor its members to prosper without His involvement and participation and influence in each family.  The family is designed for God to be at the head and center and responsibilities to be delegated and embraced from Him.  Discernment – Priorities – Focus – Proper demonstration of Love and Discipline and Council all are best demonstrated when demonstrated with Him involved and near.    With blended families, the problems and need for Christ to be at the center is even more critical.   The reason is the natural and God ordained bond between parent and child and between child and child is not established nor as strong because of separation of one parent and introduction of another.  Likewise, the introduction of new children makes the temptation to favor one over another or express more love to  one over another creates lasting hostility.  Such was the case of the story of Joseph in today’s scripture.  God designed the family to have only one father  and one mother, so having children to multiple women was a formula for disaster, which is exactly what happened.

Likewise, God intends and designed and desires for  each family to be in close relationship with Him and enjoy frequent and sustained fellowship with Him.  A relationship where children discover and get to know Him as a member of their family through the lives and habits of their parents and older siblings.  That is why God chose for parent’s and grandparent’s over lap their children’s lives by 20-30 years.  That gives grandparents time to repair mistakes they made in raising their children and be a positive influence on them and grandchildren.    Learning history and personal stories of God’s help and provision from years ago helps both rediscover God’s faithfulness and learn to give priority to make Christ the center going forward.    God was not the center of Joseph’s family and bond between his brothers ended up being a common resentment for Joseph instead of love for each other. 

But God had a different plan for them and for Joseph and weaved a  wonderful – good future for both Joseph and for his brothers.  A future of forgiveness and  redemption and healing from the  resentment that sparked an evil deed to sells Joseph into slavery and tell his father that he was killed by a wild animal.   Joseph’s father errored by showing favoritism to Joseph without regard to how it would impact his brothers.      .

Jacob had twelve sons by four wives: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun were born to Leah; Joseph and Benjamin were born to Rachel, Jacob’s true love (and Leah’s sister). Dan and Naphtali were born to Rachel’s maidservant; Bilhah; Gad and Asher were born to Leah’s maidservant, Zilpah.

It is natural and easy to show favoritism to those we love and enjoy being around, so the children of Rachel were favored by Jacob more, because of his love for Rachel, more than the children of Leah or their maidservants.  Leah’s father cheated her by tricking Jacob to marry her first.   He cheated her of the love of a man who would love and cherish her  and doomed her to only knowing Jacob’s resentment and sadness toward her and her children.

But even though this blended family was not  God’s Will or desire for them, He didn’t abandon them.  Instead He used even their sinful acts to bring good and give opportunity  for forgiveness and redemption to Jacob and his family.  This is a lesson for all of us.  But the path of redemption had to start with Joseph making the choice to follow God’s council and Will and not the justified bitterness and hatred his brothers deserved.

If Joseph had remained bitter, he would never had the dream to share to the baker and wine tester in prison.  He would never had the dream to share with Pharaoh that would set in motion wise choices that would save Egypt and his own family from starvation.  Joseph would likely had died of starvation in the prison if that were the case.  We would have never had this story to inspire and minister to us either.

Can you see the beauty of God’s handiwork in the lives of those who listen to and obey Him?  What foolish choices have we made that are still suffering consequences from?  What choices did our parents or others made that we are suffering from?  Christ came to endure the consequences of our sins and offer redemption and forgiveness and a fresh start or do-over.  He endured our judgment on the cross so we wouldn’t have to.  Joseph’s brothers didn’t deserve his forgiveness, but Joseph’s forgiveness given to them enabled God to do the miracle of healing in his family and prosper them as only He could and He would. 

The choices God wants us to make are not commonly easy or appealing, but they are always good.   God calls Himself and His creation “Good”.  We use this word to describe what we consider ok but not great or perfect.  We prefer to use other words like awesome or wonderful or amazing or  spectacular.  A beautiful sunrise or sunset or a beautiful garden are beautiful and not just good.  But consider how God uses the word GOOD and discover His definition of this word is PERFECT.   So maybe we should reserve the use of this word to describe Him and all He does and is.  In today’s story, this story had a “GOOD” ending.  So maybe we should put Him first so we will be blessed with a  GOOD day instead of just a ok day.  Well, truth is every day is a GOOD DAY when we walk with our Lord no matter if it is spent in prison or under unjust persecution, as Joseph was for a time, or enjoying prosperity  and sharing such with others.

Every day is a fresh and new gift from God.  Live is not an obligation God gives us each day but a gift to be used  either for our own selfish ends or for His glory and purpose for GOOD.   When love is unconditional, it has no favorites.  We should be glad and grateful that He loves us all unconditionally and, therefore, equally, even those of us that are not very loveable much of the time.  AMEN?  AMEN!

When love is unconditional, it can have no favorites. Thanks be to God that we are loved equally in His sight!

Red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.   Clarence H. Woolston

If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 519 blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present.

You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily.  My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to   explore and use my devotional blog materials.

My hope and prayer are, my blog and devotional materials will become a source of encouragement and tools in ministry for you.

Published by donsdevotions

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Don McDaniel - Who am I? Hello everyone and welcome to my devotional journal blog. In order to get acquainted and help you get to know me a bit better before considering following my blog, let me give you some background. I am a 74-year-old male and a retired engineer. I worked for a major supplier of underground mining equipment for nearly 40 years before retiring in 2012. Arlene and I have been happily married since April 1978 and have two grown – married children, one granddaughter and 2 step grandsons. I joined the local United Methodist church at age 12 after accepting Christ as my Savior at age 10 during revival services in that same church in 1961, so I have been a “Born Again” Christian all my teen years and adult life. Christ has helped and guided me all that time. He guided me in choosing my wife and life’s career. My life journey has included regrets and failures, but God has picked me up and protected and spared me from life threatening consequences and dangers more times than I can recall or count. But many I do recall and encourage and motivate me to trust and follow Christ with more passion than ever. Christmas 2011 our daughter gave Arlene and I each a devotional journal. Journals were books with devotion for each day and space to give personal impressions and thoughts related to each devotion. Her desire was to have a lasting legacy she could refer back to and share with her children and grandchildren especially after we are gone. I was touched by that gesture. My parents and Arlene’s were devout Christians, so we would have greatly treasured having that from them, so we felt a sense of urgency to honor her request. I finished my journal first and returned it to our daughter the following Christmas. I’m glad I did it then because Parkinson’s has caused my hand writing to deteriorate since then. The exercise was such a blessing for me. Discipline of keeping journal helped me gain a deeper walk with Christ and greater discipline in honoring my time of prayer and devotion with Him each day. So, I decided to continue the practice but since I could not find a paper journal I liked, I decided to create my own. I had already been receiving electronic devotions by email every day from several sources, my favorite being “Turning Point” from Dr. David Jeremiah. What I decided to do was to include devotional scripture but add my own thoughts and comments only so there would be no issue of copyright infringement. Creating and maintaining journal by computer also addressed my deteriorating handwriting ability. I started an electronic devotion journal January 1, 2013 and have been faithful to that practice every day since. I prayed about method and level of distribution. My initial intent was to only share it with my two children by email, but quickly discovered others in my family, my church, and friends from work (both retired and still working) who knew me and wanted to be included in distribution when they learned what I was doing. I now distribute by email my daily journal at the beginning of each month to over 150 friends and relatives. God has richly blessed and encouraged me. I am concerned with the state of our church and nation, and world for that matter, believing we are living in the end times the prophets of old and Christ have talked about in scripture, so time is short. I desire to be true to my Savior and a witness to help others come to a saving knowledge of Him and equipped to share His Good News too. If my journal can encourage and help others, I believe God wants me to share it. I struggled, for a time at first, because I know many others keep similar journals but only for their own edification and do not want to share them because they are private. However, Christ has stirred my heart to share it as a witness tool. Our son and daughter have a long-time friend who grew up with them who we also befriended nearly 25 years ago. He had a lot of family problems, so would gravitate to our family as a refuge and eventually thought of us as his adopted parents and he as our adopted son. We lost contact with him for some time when he grew up and left home. He traveled around the U.S. and eventually ended up in Ukraine where he resided for next 10 years. He had to return to the US to renew his visa and took opportunity to recommend I begin a blog of my devotions and helped me set it up. He is also an active blogger and has been an email subscriber to my journal for several months, so he has been suggesting I expand my distribution by starting a blog to get broader exposure. After reflection and prayer, I concluded God was in this, so he is helping me set up my blog site. This brief autobiography is my first entry. He returned to Ukraine, then resided there until circumstanced made him decide to move back to US with his young son. This biography was my first post February 29, 2016 . I have published 600 posts from 2016-2023 automatically sent to all my Facebook friends, published on WordPress to be accessible to anyone curious or seeking a deeper walk with God. I decided to take a sebatical to prepare for a new chapter. In 2014 I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease which affects patient ability to walk, drive, do physical work, and eventually talk. By mid 2023 it became evident our home for last 42 years (previously owned by my parents for previous 44 years and by my mother's grandparents for 39 years before that) would eventually not meet my needs so we decided to sell it and move into 1st floor of a duplex we also owned that was the town school from 1855-1913. Likewise, the property was requiring more maintenance that I was no longer able to keep up with. 2023 involved selling our home and moving into apartment next door and then in early 2025 an opportunity to move closer to our daughter and granddaughter in Kentucky which was completed in May 2025. For a number of months I have been seeking direction seeking God's direction and timing to return to blogging as my journey with Parkinson's continues to unfold with God's guiding hand in mine. I hope and pray my devotions will continue to be a blessing for you. God certainly has become closer and more real to me since started this blog in 2016. I have spent time with Him studying scripture and praying and listening and writing this journal. I will continue seeking God’s help and will welcome your input to make this site as meaningful as I can and true to God, who is motivating me to create and maintain it. I will also welcome input in order to make format more meaningful going forward. Don & Arlene McDaniel In His Service, Email: mcdanieldonald769@gmail.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Don1951 If you wish, you can access my blog at “https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com“. There you will find 600+ blog posts I have made plus a link to my devotional journal material archives from 2013 to present (https://donsdevotions.wordpress.com/2016/03/02/link-to-dons-devotional-journal-entries-2013/ ) You may also access my Facebook page and request to be my friend and automatically receive my daily journal publications daily. My Facebook page is: https://www.facebook.com/Dondevotionals/ Many thanks to a pastor and dear brother in Christ in Nepal who set up the above Facebook page to help and encourage and give opportunity for more to explore and use my devotional blog materials.

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