A Tunic For Joseph

[Jacob] loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age. Also he made him a tunic of many colors.

Genesis 37:3

Jacob, grandson of Abraham, had twelve sons of his own. The next to youngest was Joseph, a son of Jacob’s old age. Perhaps because Joseph was the first son born to Jacob’s true love, Rachel, Jacob loved him more than all the others. And to show his love, Jacob made Joseph a “tunic of many colors.”

Jacob’s choice of Joseph for reasons known only to himself is not unlike God’s choosing of believers in Christ: “He chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world” (Ephesians 1:4). And as the many colors of Joseph’s coat represented the many blessings that would come to Joseph, so God has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3). Joseph’s beautiful coat was a coat of grace—undeserved, unexpected, unexplainable. So the blessings of the believer in Christ are “according to the riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7).

Are you wearing the coat of grace—the tunic of God’s blessings—every day? Don’t try to earn it. Just receive it with gratitude for the gift it is.

Grace is the good pleasure of God that inclines Him to bestow benefits upon the undeserving.

A. W. TOZER