"It's My (Birth)Right!"

Scripture Passage for Today

GENESIS 25:27-28:5

Scripture Focus

“What good is my birthright to me now?” (Genesis 25:32 NLT)


[Esau] showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn. (Genesis 25:34 NLT)

Observation

Culturally, as the firstborn son, Esau had certain privileges and responsibilities. The firstborn son, in Esau’s world, would have received twice as much inheritance as any other son, and with that inheritance, the role as leader of the clan. The birthright involved wealth and authority. For this privilege and calling, Esau showed contempt.

I’ve often read this passage and thought about how remarkable it was that, for some bread and lentil stew—and in a moment of desperate hunger—Esau could trade his whole future away. I’m wondering, today, if it was more than a moment’s desperate hunger…if, perhaps, this moment of contempt for his calling was only characteristic of a hundred other ways Esau “shook off” what could have been his by rights.

I’m thinking of many capable, gifted people I know who care little or nothing about how their God-given gifts could be used to bear positive influence in the lives of others. And it’s no single decision, but rather, it’s a whole series of small choices by which they fritter away God-given opportunities. With a shrug of the shoulders towards bountiful possibilities—possibilities often disguised as hard work or significant needs—they show contempt for their calling in Christ.

Don’t mistake those words “in Christ” to limit what I’m saying to only “spiritual” pursuits. In the most practical ways—with the very gifts built into you by God’s hand in your creation (“Through him all things were made”—John 1:3 NIV) he designed you to bear “much fruit”—John 15:5.

And I plead guilty myself! How much influence has been squandered…how many opportunities have I lost…how many times have I showed contempt for my birthright by squandering redeemable moments on trivial pursuits? How many times have I shrugged my shoulders at greater callings?

I’m suggesting, today, that this contempt for our birthright in Christ is generally more pervasive and less dramatic than Esau’s encounter recorded here. I do not want to show contempt for any opportunities Christ may have given me by virtue of physical birth—how much more those given by virtue of my spiritual rebirth!