“Look,” said Esau, “I’m about to die, so what good is a birthright to me?”
…So Esau despised his birthright.” (32, 34)
As Isaac’s firstborn son, Esau had a birthright. These included special privileges such as a double-portion of the inheritance and leadership in the family after Isaac died.
But most importantly, it included the covenant blessings promised to Abraham and Isaac, not the least of which was a relationship with God.
But in an instant, Esau lost that birthright. He lost it because he despised his birthright, and instead followed his “flesh.”
This past Sunday, I gave a message in church talking about the “flesh,” and defined it this way: the instincts, desires, and feelings within us that pull us away from God.
In this case, Esau followed his desire for food, and threw away his birthright as a result.
It made me wonder, how often do we as Christians despise our birthright as children of God in order to follow after our flesh?
We have so many blessings from that birthright, among them a new relationship with God, a new identity as his children, freedom from our past, and access to his grace and power.
Yet do we truly value these things? Or do we ever despise them to follow our flesh?
For example, part of our blessing as God’s children is a spiritual family.
But is that blessing so important to you that you prioritize church on Sunday?
Or do you take church lightly, skipping it whenever there’s something else you really want to do that day?
Or do we ever indulge in our sins, saying, “I’ll just ask God for forgiveness later,” taking lightly the price Jesus paid for us on the cross?
There are so many ways that we despise our spiritual birthright in order to follow our flesh.
I don’t want to be that way.
I want to go against the flow of my flesh and embrace my birthright as a child of God.
How about you?
Moment to Moment (Bible blog) 