Jacob and Esau: Trading the eternal for the temporary…
In Genesis 25:19-34 the story of Jacob and Esau is told. The story plays out with Esau selling his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of soup. For the longest time I read this story and thought that Esau was an idiot…I mean who sells his birthright for a bowl of soup, who gives away something eternal for something temporary. I thought of Esau as a moron until I really laid my life on top of this scripture and let it read me. Then I was able to answer my own question…who would trade something eternal for something temporary…ME!
One of God’s attributes is that he is eternal…his blessings, promises, provisions, etc. are ultimately pointing towards eternity. One part of the Godhead is the Holy Spirit…when the Holy Spirit dwells among us and when we live deeply in Him a result is what Galatians 5:22-23 describes the fruit of the Spirit. So the fruit of the Spirit points and gives description to eternal things…the Spirit is eternal so so are it’s fruit.
Let’s take a look at a few of them and see if we trade eternal things for temporary ones.
Love: Have we ever traded love for hate? When your coach laughs at you when you tell him your dreams of playing college basketball…your attitude turns to hate very quickly. (Haha… A little personal example) Can anyone relate with hating? Love for murder even???(Matthew 5)
Peace: Has anyone traded peace for revenge? It’s hard to let a conflict go even if we are right…anyone ever not let an argument go? Anyone ever poked or brought something up from the past because you thought you were right? Arguments with your parents, spouse, brother, sister, etc. often don’t end when they should because of this reason.
Self-Control: How often do we trade self-control for instant gratification? Ever gotten drunk, gotten high, or slept around with someone to fulfill their instant desires?? Ever looked at a girl walking by and get a quick fix in your head?? Does this lead to lust…adultery?? (Matthew 5)
You can pretty much make this point with every one of the fruits…
So when you read the story of Jacob and Esau and think about Esau being a numbskull…don’t get to self-righteous because we do the same thing all the time.
Our response to this should be the same across the board…REPENTANCE. It is an insult to a perfect, eternal God when we respond to him in this way. He wants our satisfaction to be in his eternal nature…not in trading them for temporary fixes. Daily repentance is the only way to restore our relationship to the way He designed it to be.
3 comments:
This is one of my favorite posts in the last month. This hit me hard. I need to use that technique of laying myself out over some scripts and letting it read me. profound!
This post was a straight heat missile! You just brought a lot more heat than a Hawksworth fastball, that's for sure. As you said, when you let scripture read you it is amazing and somewhat disturbing what you discover about yourself. Daily repentance is essential and praise God that I have a Savior from my wickedness!! It amazes me how weak I really am without Christ my King. Thanks Nolan and this one is going in the scrapbook.
-TEvans
I just did an example of that this morning. I was driving to work and a high school kid in a broke down truck cut me off so hard, it was ridiculous. Not only was that bad enough, but then he tosses me the bird out of his window while still holding a lung dart in his hand as if I did something that made him mad. The rage poured over me so fast it was blinding. I wish I could tell you that I just said a little road prayer for the lost youth and went to work and made a sale...nope. I traded peace for instant gratification of proceeding to box the kid in for the next 5 miles. For some reason this made me feel very good. It is so hard sometimes to fight the natural human evil spirit in us. Then I get to the office and read this post, ha. Break me one time, Nolan. Thanks for the reality check.
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