An Accomplished Plan

 DEVOTION

GENESIS

AN ACCOMPLISHED PLAN

Gen 38:24-30

24 About three months later Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar is guilty of prostitution, and as a result she is now pregnant." Judah said, "Bring her out and have her burned to death!" 25 As she was being brought out, she sent a message to her father-in-law. "I am pregnant by the man who owns these," she said. And she added, "See if you recognize whose seal and cord and staff these are." 26 Judah recognized them and said, "She is more righteous than I, since I wouldn't give her to my son Shelah." And he did not sleep with her again. 27 When the time came for her to give birth, there were twin boys in her womb. 28 As she was giving birth, one of them put out his hand; so the midwife took a scarlet thread and tied it on his wrist and said, "This one came out first." 29 But when he drew back his hand, his brother came out, and she said, "So this is how you have broken out!" And he was named Perez.   30 Then his brother, who had the scarlet thread on his wrist, came out and he was given the name Zerah.  

NIV

First, we should note that the birth of the twins is similar to the birth of Jacob and Esau with Jacob being the heal grabber. Strangely, this should happen in the same family tree. However, what is of special note is that because Judah was going to have her burned alive until he found out she was not a prostitute but because he refused to do what was right or righteous by giving her to his youngest son, she became pregnant by Judah. He stated she was more righteous than he was. Therefore, her son Perez would continue the line of Judah through David to Jesus. Tamar is in the line of Jesus. What is the story, the truth we are supposed to glean from this narrative? How does this apply to us? Once again, Neither Judah nor Tamar were perfect people and yet through the divine direction of Almighty God, their descendants would bring forth the Son of God. Mary was a descendant of David through his son Nathan, the brother of Solomon, of whom Joseph was a descendent. Therefore, Jesus, the Son of God as a man was fully from the line of David and would rule on the throne of David forever. God brought his Son into the world through imperfect people, even David was guilty of a grievous sin, and yet he is the only man in the bible that God testified as a man after His own heart. So this narrative of Judah and Tamar proves once again God uses imperfect people to accomplish his divine will. This gives us hope and encouragement that in our imperfectness God will still use us to accomplish his divine plan both for our own lives and those we have the opportunity to influence, either through our lives, actions, or words. Then, on the other hand, even though it may seem we are not being very useful to the kingdom of God, one of our descendants could be the game changer for the kingdom. It could be of our own gene pool, a natural descendant, or it could be a spiritual descendent, one whom through we were instrumental in their being in the kingdom, by our witness of what God did in our imperfect lives. What we know as fact, is that God will always accomplish His plan in and through us, as he did through Judah and Tamar. This was just another accomplished plan.