“...and when the time of mourning was ended, Judah went up to his sheepshearers at Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the Adullamite. It was told to Tamar, ‘Behold, your father-in-law is going up to Timnah to shear his sheep.’ So she removed her widow’s garments and covered herself with a veil, and wrapped herself, and sat in the gateway of Enaim, which is on the road to Timnah....When Judah saw her, he thought she was a harlot, for she had covered her face. So he turned aside to her by the road, and said, ‘Here now, let me come in to you’; for he did not know that she was his daughter-in-law....”
~Genesis 38:12-16
Judah lay with his daughter-in-law. She enticed him. What they did was sin!
Yet, look at this:
“Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar...”
~Matthew 1:3
God chose to include Judah and Tamar in the lineage of Jesus Christ! The line runs through a man born of harlotry. Neither Judah nor Tamar deserved to be ancestors of the Messiah. But think about it: no one deserves to be saved, either.
It’s not a license to sin. But this is a great encouragement to me, as one who messes up time and again and wonders how He could ever still love her.
Nothing good can be earned. I don’t deserve any of the mercy God has shown me. Neither do you. But He is love, and nothing His children do can separate them from Him.
