This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: Mat 1:1

I’ve heard it said that you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. Well, that may be true of us but it wasn’t true of Jesus. Jesus’s family tree was very much a part of God’s plan of redemption of mankind. This had been the plan for ages. God could have chosen any other way to enter the world, but this is when you see that God’s ways are infinitely higher than ours. It is when you see God’s plan in generations upon generations.

The story of Jesus’s family line is one of grace. I read somewhere on the internet that “If you study these names in detail, it’s almost as if God has pulled together a rogue’s gallery.” Among those making up Jesus’s family were liars, murderers, fornicators, adulterers and other sinners. How could God allow people like that into Jesus’s family line? This is the scandal of grace! Also, there are 5 others you would least suspect to be called out by name. 5 women.

Tamar (Genesis 38), after she became widowed, had a plan – to dress up as a prostitute and seduce her father-in-law to have a child by him and then blackmail him. Not the saint you would expect in this family tree.
Rahab. There is much to say about her but basically, she was a prostitute.
Ruth was a Gentile and was not part of the people of God, the Jews.
And then there’s Bathsheba. Where to begin. The wife of a soldier; the king sees her and wants her so sleeps with her and after it is discovered that she is pregnant, he hatches a plan to recall the husband from battle so that he could sleep with his wife to cover up his mess. After that fails, it’s simple – get the guy killed.

And this is the story of Jesus’s family line. Not very pretty. The last woman to be mentioned is Mary. Jesus was known as Mary’s son more than he was as Joseph’s son. Very unusual in a patriarchal culture. He ran the risk of being called a mommy’s boy.

All this to show that God will not necessarily work in the way that you expect him to or would like him to. He always has a few surprises and most of them to show that he is God and you are not and also that he is a God of grace.

This gives each of us confidence as well because no matter how messed up your past or your life is, God may still want to use you to bring about the next best thing in his grand plan.

Be full of faith and confidence! Be thankful! Be worshipful! Be expectant for God to use you! Be obedient when he does!

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