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Reformed Devotionals Daily Podcast

Reformed Devotionals Daily Podcast

By: Bringing the timeless truths of Scripture into the everyday lives of believers
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 Bringing the timeless truths of Scripture into the everyday lives of believers. Each day we take the next piece of the Bible and reflect on it together to help you see how Jesus is the hero of every passage of scripture. Each day we also have a spiritual challenge for you to help you grow.

reformeddevotional.substack.comChris Pretorius Christianity Spirituality
Episodes
  • The true test of change

    The true test of change
    Sep 10 2025
    Have you ever had a moment when your past actions have suddenly caught up with you? When something you thought was buried came rushing back, and you had no choice but to face it? That’s what happens to Joseph’s brothers in Genesis 44.Genesis 44 (ESV)Then he commanded the steward of his house, “Fill the men's sacks with food, as much as they can carry, and put each man's money in the mouth of his sack, and put my cup, the silver cup, in the mouth of the sack of the youngest, with his money for the grain.” And he did as Joseph told him. As soon as the morning was light, the men were sent away with their donkeys. They had gone only a short distance from the city. Now Joseph said to his steward, “Up, follow after the men, and when you overtake them, say to them, ‘Why have you repaid evil for good? Is it not from this that my lord drinks, and by this that he practices divination? You have done evil in doing this.’”Joseph sets a trap for his brothers. Now we shouldn’t mistake this as cruelty or because he wants to take out years worth of anger on his brothers. No Joseph does this test his brothers. Actually as we will see, God is testing the brothers and forcing them to deal with their past. The silver cup in Benjamin’s sack would expose whether their hearts had really changed, or whether this was all just for show? Would they abandon young Benjamin, just like they had abandoned Joseph years before? Or would they stand with him? God uses this trap to prick their consciences. They will have to face what had happened in the past. There can be no escape from their sin. When he overtook them, he spoke to them these words. They said to him, “Why does my lord speak such words as these? Far be it from your servants to do such a thing! Behold, the money that we found in the mouths of our sacks we brought back to you from the land of Canaan. How then could we steal silver or gold from your lord's house? Whichever of your servants is found with it shall die, and we also will be my lord's servants.” He said, “Let it be as you say: he who is found with it shall be my servant, and the rest of you shall be innocent.” Then each man quickly lowered his sack to the ground, and each man opened his sack. And he searched, beginning with the eldest and ending with the youngest. And the cup was found in Benjamin's sack. Then they tore their clothes, and every man loaded his donkey, and they returned to the city.Now this is the critical part of the story. Here is the opportunity for repentance, for accepting their guilt. This is the knife’s edge, which way will they now go? They could leave Benjamin behind. They could have shrugged and said, “Not my circus, not my monkeys.” But they don’t. This time is different. They tear their clothes instead. This is a public outward sign that they were grieving, that they shared in each other’s pain. Instead of just letting Benjamin be taken and imprisoned, they all go back to Egypt together. Just as they entered into the sin of selling Joseph into slavery, so too now they together turn to face the axe. Something truly has changed in these men.When Judah and his brothers came to Joseph's house, he was still there. They fell before him to the ground. Joseph said to them, “What deed is this that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me can indeed practice divination?” And Judah said, “What shall we say to my lord? What shall we speak? Or how can we clear ourselves? God has found out the guilt of your servants; behold, we are my lord's servants, both we and he also in whose hand the cup has been found.” But he said, “Far be it from me that I should do so! Only the man in whose hand the cup was found shall be my servant. But as for you, go up in peace to your father.”Judah says what they all fell. “God has found out the guilt of your servants.” I don’t believe he is just talking about the cup - after all they aren’t guilty of taking the cup. He is talking about the years of hidden sin, the way they betrayed Joseph, the way they lied to their father about what happened to him. Eventually the weight of all this guilt has caught up and it comes crashing down on them. They tried the Adam and Eve trick, of hiding from the eyes of God, but God has caught them. God sees all. God has found out the guilt of all of us. Now we should shudder at this thought. Consider only the last week of your life - consider where you would stand if God called you to account, just for the week you lived. Now what about your whole life? God has found out the guilt we all bear. This is a terrifying position to be in!Then Judah went up to him and said, “Oh, my lord, please let your servant speak a word in my lord's ears, and let not your anger burn against your servant, for you are like Pharaoh himself. My lord asked his servants, saying, ‘Have you a father, or a brother?’ And we said to my lord, ‘We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the ...
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    10 mins
  • God softens hearts

    God softens hearts
    Sep 9 2025
    Have you ever been in a situation where you had no choice but to face something you had been avoiding? That’s where Jacob and his sons find themselves in Genesis 43.Genesis 43 (ESV)Now the famine was severe in the land. And when they had eaten the grain that they had brought from Egypt, their father said to them, “Go again, buy us a little food.” But Judah said to him, “The man solemnly warned us, saying, ‘You shall not see my face unless your brother is with you.’ If you will send our brother with us, we will go down and buy you food. But if you will not send him, we will not go down, for the man said to us, ‘You shall not see my face, unless your brother is with you.’” Israel said, “Why did you treat me so badly as to tell the man that you had another brother?” They replied, “The man questioned us carefully about ourselves and our kindred, saying, ‘Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?’ What we told him was in answer to these questions. Could we in any way know that he would say, ‘Bring your brother down’?” And Judah said to Israel his father, “Send the boy with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live and not die, both we and you and also our little ones. I will be a pledge of his safety. From my hand you shall require him. If I do not bring him back to you and set him before you, then let me bear the blame forever. If we had not delayed, we would now have returned twice.”Ah yes, the old stubborn Jacob… He specifically told his children not to go back to Egypt, because he believed that he had already lost Simeon there. But there is nothing quite so humbling as being brought to your knees by utmost desperation. He finally has to bend his knee to God, because the famine was severe in the land. How often could we spare ourselves pain if we just bent our knees to God’s will earlier… Also here we see Judah begin to emerge as a different man. This is the same Judah who once sold Joseph for silver. Now he offers himself as a pledge for Benjamin’s safety. Sin had once made him selfish, but the hardship he had gone through is beginning to soften his heart. Isn’t this what God often does? He brings us and takes us to the utmost ends of ourselves, so that he can reshapes our character through the process. Then their father Israel said to them, “If it must be so, then do this: take some of the choice fruits of the land in your bags, and carry a present down to the man, a little balm and a little honey, gum, myrrh, pistachio nuts, and almonds. Take double the money with you. Carry back with you the money that was returned in the mouth of your sacks. Perhaps it was an oversight. Take also your brother, and arise, go again to the man. May God Almighty grant you mercy before the man, and may he send back your other brother and Benjamin. And as for me, if I am bereaved of my children, I am bereaved.”I bet you didn’t expect pistachios when you opened the Bible today! I certainly didn’t. Anyway, here we see Jacob finally letting go of his stubbornness. Notice his prayer: “May God Almighty grant you mercy.” For all his faults, Jacob knew that if mercy was going to come, it had to come from God. Jacob has had to rely on God’s mercy many times before and in the end, after all his stubbornness he knows deep down that he can still rely on it now. Sometimes that is what faith looks like. We hold on to and grasp something tight for such a long time that it ultimately cripples us. But in the end, in faith and in trusting in God’s mercy, we finally open our hands and entrust it to God. Maybe you feel like this today… here is your opportunity to let it go.So the men took this present, and they took double the money with them, and Benjamin. They arose and went down to Egypt and stood before Joseph. When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to the steward of his house, “Bring the men into the house, and slaughter an animal and make ready, for the men are to dine with me at noon.” The man did as Joseph told him and brought the men to Joseph’s house. And the men were afraid because they were brought to Joseph’s house, and they said, “It is because of the money, which was replaced in our sacks the first time, that we are brought in, so that he may assault us and fall upon us to make us servants and seize our donkeys.”Do you see how guilt and fear twist their thinking? Is that not often how guilt and fear work? Instead of trusting in God’s mercy and expecting kindness from Joseph, they expect punishment. They cannot imagine grace. That is what guilt does to the heart… it makes us suspicious. But could it be that we miss out on the joy of blessings that God has sovereignly arranged for us as a result of our fear or guilt? Something to think about…So they went up to the steward of Joseph’s house and spoke with him at the door of the house, and said, “Oh, my lord, we came down the first time to buy food. And when we came to...
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    9 mins
  • The Sin that Haunts us

    The Sin that Haunts us
    Sep 8 2025
    Have you ever had the experience where something you thought you got away with, comes back to bite you? Maybe it was some secret sin you committed, which turns out to be not so secret. Maybe it is something you have felt guilty about for a long time, and the guilt just grew and grew until it became a burden to you. We see something of that in our passage today. Today I am going to try something a little different, I will be working through the passage as we go, and pause here and there to make a few devotional comments.Genesis 42 (ESV)When Jacob learned that there was grain for sale in Egypt, he said to his sons, “Why do you look at one another?” And he said, “Behold, I have heard that there is grain for sale in Egypt; go down and buy grain for us there, that we may live and not die.” So ten of Joseph’s brothers went down to buy grain in Egypt. But Jacob did not send Benjamin, Joseph’s brother, with his brothers, for he feared that harm might happen to him. Thus the sons of Israel came to buy among the others who came, for the famine was in the land of Canaan.Interestingly we see that the land of Canaan, which would later become the land overflowing with milk and honey, a land known for its abundance, is now the land of famine. This is often how God works to bring about renewal and drive redemption forward. It makes me wonder, with everything going on in the world today, what is God doing at the macro level to help redeem the micro level?Now Joseph was governor over the land. He was the one who sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed themselves before him with their faces to the ground. Joseph saw his brothers and recognized them, but he treated them like strangers and spoke roughly to them. “Where do you come from?” he said. They said, “From the land of Canaan, to buy food.” And Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him. And Joseph remembered the dreams that he had dreamed of them. Once God has decreed something to happen, it will happen. God gave Joseph his dreams and here they are coming true! You see, we can fight against God’s plans for us, we can scheme against God’s plans for others, but in the end what God wills, God does. In fact it is often our very sinful and broken actions that are used by God precisely to do his will. So it is with Joseph - what man had intended for evil, God has intended for good. And so it is with Jesus, we killed the Son of God, but He used that very wicked act to bring about the salvation of all who would believe.And he said to them, “You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.” They said to him, “No, my lord, your servants have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest men. Your servants have never been spies.” He said to them, “No, it is the nakedness of the land that you have come to see.” And they said, “We, your servants, are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in the land of Canaan, and behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is no more.” But Joseph said to them, “It is as I said to you: you are spies. By this you shall be tested: by the life of Pharaoh, you shall not go from this place unless your youngest brother comes here. Send one of you, and let him bring your brother, while you remain confined, that your words may be tested, whether there is truth in you. Or else, by the life of Pharaoh, surely you are spies.” And he put them all together in custody for three days.On the third day Joseph said to them, “Do this and you will live, for I fear God: if you are honest men, let one of your brothers remain confined where you are in custody, and let the rest go and carry grain for the famine of your households, and bring your youngest brother to me. So your words will be verified, and you shall not die.” And they did so. Then they said to one another, “In truth we are guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this distress has come upon us.” And Reuben answered them, “Did I not tell you not to sin against the boy? But you did not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” These brothers’ guilt had presumably haunted them for many years. We cannot escape our sin and wickedness. It sticks to us like superglue. But it seems that in the years the brothers had become wiser as they have become older. They now take responsibility for what they have done, they recognise God’s hand in this and that God often uses our very sin to sanctify us and to change us. They recognise that their distress is because of the distress they caused Joseph. People often say “sin is its own reward”. Turns out that is true.They did not know that Joseph understood them, for there was an interpreter between them. Then he turned away from them and wept. And he returned to them and spoke to them. And he took Simeon from them and ...
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    11 mins
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