Genesis 45:1-8
1Then Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone leave my presence!” So there was no one with Joseph when he made himself known to his brothers.
2And he wept so loudly that the Egyptians heard him, and Pharaoh’s household heard about it.
3Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph! Is my father still living?” But his brothers were not able to answer him, because they were terrified at his presence.
4Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come close to me.” When they had done so, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt!
5And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.
6For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping.
7But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.
8“So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt.
Genesis 50:15-21
15When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?”
16So they sent word to Joseph, saying, “Your father left these instructions before he died:
17‘This is what you are to say to Joseph: I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly.’ Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father.” When their message came to him, Joseph wept.
18His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. “We are your slaves,” they said.
19But Joseph said to them, “Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God?
20You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.
21So then, don’t be afraid. I will provide for you and your children.” And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
1 Peter 4:8
8Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
Romans 8:28
28And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
What Horizontal Forgiveness Looks Like
Joseph in the Old Testament gave us a vivid picture of what true horizontal forgiveness looks like. For one, it means not wanting to parade the sin of the one who offended you. Joseph extended forgiveness to his brothers who had treated him horribly, but he did so in private. If you genuinely forgive somebody, you won’t feel compelled to tell others what that person did to you, for “love will cover a multitude of sins” (1 Peter 4:8).
Real forgiveness also means wanting to set the person who has wronged you at ease. Sometimes we’ll say we have forgiven someone, but we still want to make them feel like a creep when they’re in our presence. Joseph, on the other hand, assured his brothers that he didn’t harbor any vengeance or bitterness against them.
When it came down to it, Joseph was able to forgive his brothers because he saw life with a vertical perspective. “As for you, you meant evil against me,” he told them, “but God meant it for good, in order to bring it about as it is this day, to save many people alive” (Genesis 50:20). He recognized that behind their sin, God was sovereignly working all things together for good, as Romans 8:28 tells us.
I don’t know what pain or suffering you have gone through or are going through because of others. But I do know God is able to take everything in your life—the good things as well as the poisonous, toxic things—and bring divine synergism to it all so the ultimate result is a supreme good as He defines it.
In the meantime, even if we never see that divine synergism on this side of Heaven, we are still called to forgive as Christ has forgiven us. And if Joseph shows us anything, it’s that true forgiveness is a choice. If you base forgiveness on your feelings, you may never go through with it. “Well, I would forgive them if only they would” fill in the blank. That might never happen. So just forgive. It’s possible only in Christ. You probably won’t feel like it, but you can still do it. It can be divorced from how you feel.
As Corrie ten Boom wrote, “Forgiveness is not an emotion…. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart.”
We would like to thank Connect with Skip Heitzig for providing this plan.
Every Day With God 