From His Fullness We Have Received

From His Fullness We Have Received

Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s dream, which predicted a coming famine. And when Joseph outlined a plan to Pharaoh for preparing for the famine, Pharaoh not only accepted the plan but also put Joseph in charge. “Joseph gathered all the crops grown in Egypt and stored the grain from the surrounding fields in the cities. He piled up huge amounts of grain like sand on the seashore. Finally, he stopped keeping records because there was too much to measure” (Genesis 41:48-49).

When the time of famine came and the hungry came to Egypt after hearing about the storehouses of grain Joseph had laid up, Pharaoh sent them to Joseph: “‘Go to Joseph, and do whatever he tells you.’ So with severe famine everywhere, Joseph opened up the storehouses and distributed grain” (Genesis 41:55-56).

Here, as in so many other ways, Joseph points us to the heart of the ministry of Jesus—the One who dispenses bread to a perishing world. When sinners, with a great hunger in their souls, cry out to God, what is God’s response? He points them to Jesus because “there is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

But while the plenty Joseph dispensed points us to Jesus, it also helps us to see the infinite superiority of the sufficiency of Jesus. For many in Joseph’s time, coming to Egypt to be fed required an arduous journey. But faith brings us in one moment to Christ’s storehouses of grace. Perhaps there were appointed hours when Joseph distributed grain, but the grace of Christ is always at hand. Those who came to Joseph were required to purchase their food. But we receive all in Christ without cost. We merely ask, and we receive. The Egyptian granaries, though very full, were one day exhausted. But “from his abundance we have all received one gracious blessing after another” (John 1:16).

In Christ, the empty are filled; the impoverished are made rich; the weak become strong; the faint are revived; the famished are fed.

Son of Joseph, gracious Provider, I come to you from a land where there is no good thing to feed my hungry soul, confident that you have provision you will gladly give me from your abundance.