Just Joseph?

Last Sunday I talked a little bit about Joseph ( Mary's Joseph) and the magnanimous way he decided to treat Mary after she turned up preggers, even before the angel of the Lord told him what was going on.

It was a difficult talk about properly forgiving people, but what I didn't have time to go into was how super Joseph was in respect of his relationship with God! I was reading the beginning of the book of Matthew and Matthew spends a lot of time pointing out how God is working, how God has paved the way and showing God's plans being fulfilled. It's all very clever.

Joseph was very involved in this. His obedience to God fulfilled many of God's plans, for example Jesus being born in Bethlehem and being exiled into Egypt (Matthew includes old testament references to these events prophesied hundreds of years before!)

God spoke to Joseph in dreams and Joseph took these things seriously. Where most men would probably have discarded their future wife for unfaithfulness, (as proven clearly by this week's episode of Merlin – sort it out Arthur!), Joseph's strong trust in God saved both he and Mary a lot of pain, maybe even saved Mary's life. Later Joseph's continuing faith and relationship with God would save Jesus' life, as Herod plotted to kill him.

A studious friend of mine also points out that Joseph sets Jesus up with a good trade that is locally renowned and he is also the father of at least two early church leaders (James and Jude).

Oh boy, what a guy! Gentleman, how's that for an example of Godly manhood? Ladies, do we even expect as much from ourselves as the little-celebrated Joseph did?

When was the last time someone said to you, “Oh, I'm not quite sure what to do here,” and you were able to say with certainty “I know the answer to that! I'll take responsibility for that decision! I've prayed it through and I'm at peace with God about it. I know what we have to do...”?
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