10 May 2010 Devotion for Today "Selling Your Birthright" Genesis 25:27-34
27 The boys grew up, and Esau became a skillful hunter, a man of the open country, while Jacob was a quiet man, staying among the tents. 28 Isaac, who had a taste for wild game, loved Esau, but Rebekah loved Jacob. 29 Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished. 30 He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished!" (That is why he was also called Edom. ) 31 Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright." 32 "Look, I am about to die," Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" 33 But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob.
34 Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and some lentil stew. He ate and drank, and then got up and left. So Esau despised his birthright. (Genesis 25:27-34)
Last time we dealt with the birth of these two children of Isaac and Rebekah, who asked throughout her turbulent pregnancy if everything were fine, why was she so troubled? It turned out that these twins who were later born to her were as different as two boys could be. One was a "man's man"- a hunter, an outdoorsman who made his father proud. This was Esau. Jacob, however, was characterized as "a mama's boy"- one who stayed close to home and evidently acquired some great skill in the kitchen. This did not escape Esau's notice, either.
When Esau came in one day from a hunting trip, he smelled his brother's cooking and declared that he was so hungry he was about to die. Why he said this we do not know. Perhaps he was just joking. Jacob heard him and decided to take advantage of his jest by pretending to go along with it. In those days, when someone said something publicly, it was not taken lightly. Evidently there were witnesses around; perhaps servants or Rebekah, their mother may have been standing close by. Jacob then told him, "sell me your birthright"- that is, the status of inheriting all of his father's land and possessions. Esau quickly and unwisely agreed. He flippantly did what he thought he needed to do to get what he wanted to eat. Esau was possibly "not the sharpest tool in the shed", for had he been thinking, being of superior strength, could have challenged Jacob to an arm-wrestling contest or even overpowered the weaker Jacob to get what he wanted. However it happened, Esau swore an oath to his brother declaring that he had essentially dispensed with his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.
Esau was one of those kinds of people who do not appreciate what they have until they have lost it? Apparently Esau didn't even realize what he had lost as he gets up from the table and goes back out to hunt. Esau was one who lived for the moment, and not long-term. Your birthright is your faith in God. How many people do we know who are like this- who will make a terrible choice because it seems good at the moment only to find that, down the road, they wished that they had chosen differently. Their birthright of the most fulfilling future and opportunities have been forfeited, squandered on what they want right now. I know young people, for example, who have squandered their virginity for a momentary pleasure and had to set aside college plans for menial jobs in order to raise families for which they were not prepared emotionally or financially. I have known others who traded their birthright for a sip of alcohol or drugs and are now in a wheelchair or have had legal woes steal the realization of what opportunities they could have had. I've known some who gave into the temptations of pornography and have stolen what passion their wives could have given them. These are just some examples that all demonstrate how easily lost our birthrights can be because they were not regarded for the value they might have had.
Don't sell your birthright. Keep it, protect it as the dear thing that it is, and when you are older you will find that because you kept and protected it, that it will keep and protect you.
Have a blessed day
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