Giving up the Ultimate for the Immediate

Genesis 25:29-34

Once when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau came in from the open country, famished.
He said to Jacob, "Quick, let me have some of that red stew! I'm famished." Jacob replied, "First sell me your birthright."

"Look, I am about to die." Esau said. "What good is the birthright to me?" But Jacob said, "Swear to me first." So he swore an oath to him, selling his birthright to Jacob. 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.

Esau gives up the Ultimate for the Immediate

In this story, Esau gives up his birthright for a bowl of stew. If you don't understand the concept of the birthright you might not get how absurd this was. To be the first born and have the birthright meant that you would receive the larger share of the inheritance when your father died. In addition the son with the birthright would become the family patriarch, in charge of taking care of the family. The birthright was a big deal.

Esau gave that up for a bowl of stew? Really? Do you really believe that Esau was about to die? Do you think that Esau was in bad enough shape that he couldn't wait for a while...that he didn't have the energy to make a sandwich? If Esau wouldn't have sold his birthright would the it be said 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Esau' instead of 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'?

Esau gave up the Ultimate for the Immediate. He gave up what would have been a huge blessing for an immediate desire...to eat.

Where in your life are you giving up the Ultimate blessing for a short term Immediate desire?

If we are honest, don't we do this a lot? We live in a culture that tells us we don't need to wait. That we need to live for the moment and we should give in to our desires when we have them.

So we give in to our immediate desires and go into debt, give into our immediate desires not worrying about the consequences, go to our immediate desires for comfort and acceptance. We give up the ultimate blessing when we give into our immediate sexual desires and have premarital sex, turn to pornography or an affair.

When we feed our need for the immediate, what Ultimate blessing are we given up in the future? It's something we need to consider.

Lord, I pray that you would reveal to us those areas of our lives where we let the immediate get in the way of the ultimate. Reveal those areas that we give into, which cause distance in our relationship with You. Lord walk with us today and help us to keep the ultimate prize in focus and give us strength to ignore the temptation of the immediate desires that trip us up. In the name of Jesus, Amen!