# 417 God Is Bound Up In You!

The Book of Genesis

Day 417

Ge 44:18 Then Judah came near to him and said: "O my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord's hearing, and do not let your anger burn against your servant; for you are even like Pharaoh.  19 "My lord asked his servants, saying, 'Have you a father or a brother?'  20 "And we said to my lord, 'We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, who is young; his brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.'  21 "Then you said to your servants, 'Bring him down to me, that I may set my eyes on him.'  22 "And we said to my lord, 'The lad cannot leave his father, for if he should leave his father, his father would die.'  23 "But you said to your servants, 'Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, you shall see my face no more.'  24 "So it was, when we went up to your servant my father, that we told him the words of my lord.  25 "And our father said, 'Go back and buy us a little food.'  26 "But we said, 'We cannot go down; if our youngest brother is with us, then we will go down; for we may not see the man's face unless our youngest brother is with us.'  27 "Then your servant my father said to us, 'You know that my wife bore me two sons;  28 'and the one went out from me, and I said, "Surely he is torn to pieces"; and I have not seen him since.  29 'But if you take this one also from me, and calamity befalls him, you shall bring down my gray hair with sorrow to the grave.'  30 "Now therefore, when I come to your servant my father, and the lad is not with us, since his life is bound up in the lad's life,  31 "it will happen, when he sees that the lad is not with us, that he will die. So your servants will bring down the gray hair of your servant our father with sorrow to the grave.

Judah recounts the whole story to Joseph. It seems his whole intent is to try and get Joseph to understand how much Jacob loved Benjamin. In fact, we read that Jacob’s “whole life is bound up in the lad’s life.”

When I read this, I can’t help but think of my heavenly Father and how much His life is bound up in mine. If it’s good for me, there is nothing He won’t do for me. God is so bound up in me, that HE did not spare His only Son, but delivered Him up for my sins, and if He did that, “how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.” (Rom 8:32)

God is so bound up in me, that He knows the exact number of hairs on my head. (Mt 10:31)

He knows when every sparrow falls to the ground and assures me that I am of more value than many sparrows. (Mt 10:31)

God is so bound up in me that HE desires that I cast all my cares upon Him. (1 Pet 5:7)

God is so bound up in me that He chastens me, for whom the Lord loves He chastens (Heb 12:6)

God is so bound up in me that “neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:38,39)

Judah told Joseph that if they didn’t return with Benjamin his father would die. That’s how God feels about you and I, and to prove it HE sent His only Son to die a cruel death on the cross so we might be brought home to Him, and He did it while you and I were yet sinners. (Rom 5:8)

God loves you ! He wants you home! 2Pe 3:9 says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”