Aug. 9, 2016
MY FRIENDS, ARE WE SETTLING FOR A FLEETING MOMENT IN TIME?
Our narrative begins with Jacob cooking when Esau comes back from the field tired and very hungry. “And Esau said to Jacob, “Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary…….But Jacob said, “Sell me your birthright today.” And Esau said, “Look, I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me……So he swore to Jacob, and then sold his birthright……And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright” Gen. 25:29-34 (NKJV)
Esau despised or regarded with contempt, distaste, disgust, or disdain his Birthright which was “his right or privilege he was entitled too by birth” but to Esau it was a “yoke of bondage” to what he wanted most, which were the things of this world, a “momentary satisfaction” or a fleeting moment in time. My friends, our focus today is not on Esau’s lost opportunities but on how many of us are selling our birthright because it has become a “yoke of bondage” for what we desire of this worlds pleasures?
And how many of us are willing to give this right along with life eternal for a fleeting moment of satisfactions of Satan’s offer to give us “all the things
[our heart desires] if we will only fall down and worship him?” Matt 4:9 (NKJV) But then, how many of us with a passion, have a desire to “receive Christ” “the only name under heaven given among men or women by which we can become children of God?” Acts 4:12 (NKJV), John 1:12 (ESV) My friends, salvation is our right by birth because we are “heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ,” Rom 8:17 (NKJV)
And “if [we] have been raised with Christ [to a new life, sharing in His resurrection from the dead, then we must], keep seeking the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. [We must also] set our mind and keep focused habitually on the things above [the heavenly things], not on [momentary] things that are on this earth [which have only temporal value]. [So we must die to this world], and our [new, real] life is [then] hidden with Christ, in God Col 3:1-3 (AMP)
My friends, we live in a face pace got to have it now generation where everything is focused on “momentary satisfactions” and not on a lasting and personal relationship with Christ. So we must overcome the desires of the heart that are not Christ centered because “everyone who has been born of God [can] overcome the world. And this is the victory that [we can] overcome [through] our faith.” 1 John 5:4 (ESV)
But we must also understand along with our birthright is our responsibility of discipleship and the cross that we must carry with a passion while at the same time telling the world that Jesus saves and they also are children of God with the same rights and privileges that we have to life eternal. We are at the end of God’s timeline that goes from Genesis to Revelation and then to that place prepared for the redeemed.
But we must choose this day whom our allegiance is to because the right given to us by God tells us to accept our birthright and salvation. But it is our choice to “Enter by that narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matt 7:13-14 (NKJV)
Speak Your Mind