Do you know the story of Jacob and Esau?
Basically there were these two brothers…and they were twins. And they were both liked less by one of their parents… Basically Mom and Dad chose one of the boys as their favorites.
Mom chose Jacob, Dad chose Esau.
And in those days, it was catastrophic not to be chosen or favored by the father…
Later Jacobs own sons would become scheming ‘murderers’ because of the lack of their fathers favor.
It was, after all a lie that lead to the first murder…when Cain felt unfavored by God himself…
But i digress.
In order for Jacob to gain his fathers favor he seems to think he must be the firstborn. So without much hassle, he gets his brother to verbally agree to give him the firstborn position.
How does he get his hairy twin to agree to this?
He learns to cook real well. And he lurs his brother with a bowl of soup.
Guess the way to a man is thru his stomach!
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So this got me thinking.
Because when we were on our way to Romania we got a lot of warnings, and heard a lot of stories about the Roma people. One of my friends in Serbia told me about the stabbings and death of street people in serbia by roma children wanting money! Then we got a lot of safety warnings about getting stuff stolen or our stuff hacked thru wifi, or our card information being robbed – since that frequently happened.
So…i had this slight hyper vigilent feeling when i got here…
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Today i was thinking through how i value my stuff, but not myself; how i can value my stuff and not the things Gods said about me, promised me, or given me.
Wow…why?
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So i was thinking this question for myself, and i want to ask you:
What is or has or will the devil use to swindle you from your inheritance in God? What has God said is yours that right now you are willing to give up for a ‘bowl of soup’??
Because here’s the thing that always confused me.
Esau was a hunter. He was a hunter.
He knew how to get food.
And two chapters later, history claims he prepared some tasty food. So he also knew how to cook.
The men those days were not like the average college graduate bachelor men nowadays.
So why, did Esau sell his birthright for the soup?
The bible tells us, because he despised his birthright.
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Am i despising my birthright in Christ?
Are you?
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Whether people want to admit or not, we all recognize that there are evil things that happen in the world.
Everything cannot be someones truth and be ok. Because horrible, terrible, aweful things happen, are said, and are done to and by people.
So, lets talk about that for a minute.
Why?
Because i have a point.
Look around you. Look at how amazingly freakingly beautiful this world is! How the deeper and closer you investigate the smallest bug or flower the more detail you find. How everything works so exactly and intimately and purposely together.
We breathe out, and the trees breathe in.
The trees breathe out, and we breathe in.
And then, us. We see, and feel, and become jealous. We desire, we weep for wanting. We determine, we scheme, we plan…we desire but do not have, so we steal, and kill. We covet but we cannot get what we want, so we quarrel and fight, betray and disown.
We believe, so we try to make it so by any means necessary.
We are given, yet we reject.
We are stubborn and defensive.
We are shown the way. We know the way to live at peace, but we are not satisfied. It is not enough. We want more.
So terrible things are done.
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I believe that God made everything for our satisfaction, enjoyment, pleasure.
I look at everything, i taste, and i see that it is so good. Even sex. The bible claims that God created this for us. Wow. Yay! Great!!!… Yet, why – when basically i deny myself nothing – am i still unsatisfied?
Why are people that have billions still unsatisfied?
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History has passed down the stories, the testimony of people from time before time. Those stories say that God has told us why- and time after time what He said to people has been proven right.
Yet despite all Gods goodness, his kept promises, his proven promises, and the proving of his warnings of danger outside his goodness, people still want outside Gods gifts… to their own detriment.
God promised that the things He gives will produce the enough our hearts desire. Yet time after time the majority of people fail to believe, believe God or the testimonies of time. They fail to believe and choose instead to jump for their own ways and find that only death rushes up to meet them.
So, here i am.
I feel deep deep impossible promises whispered to my soul. I feel God offering me things that i cant imagine. I feel a call to follow without any physical gaurantees, only His word. His word that he created all things with…
His word that He has good plans for me. Plans to prosper me. To give me a future and a hope. A hope that will not dissapoint…
And time after time, i find that i follow half heartedly, dragging my safety nets that end up only allowing me to follow so far. Because i am afraid his promises will fail my hearts desire(s).
And honestly im even too afraid to acknowledge what my hearts desires are.
Damn.
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Side note: i was at a summer camp once as a camp counselor, and a speaker was having an open Q&A session and was asked by one of the junior highers, their little hand hessitatingly raised, “how can you know which god is really the real god, cause theres a lot of gods in the world.”
Mr. Dewey Bertallini pointed at the kid nodding with a big smile, “That is an excellent question!” Then he said something that has stuck with me (alongside my own building life experiences).
He said if we take all the religions of the world and compare them, we will find a similarity. A similarity which creates all the fightings and all the anger and disunity and deaths and wars between religions. The similarity is that each religion believes that they have thee list of how to be a good person, how to get to heaven/become an ultimate being/reward, how to escape our fallen (evil) nature, how to make life worth it, and restore the world…and that when comparing all those lists against eachother it would be impossible because of time restrictions, and the nature of impending death, to figure out which religion had the correct list.
He said, “There is only one man in all of history that said ‘there’s nothing you can do. Theres no list you can do well enough.’ And this man claimed to have done thee undoable list for us to redeem, save, change, and reward us. He said if we believe in him and take the gift of life he offers and give him our life, we will be saved.
So now you have two religions instead of a million different choices.
You have all the religions of the world and their lists of how to do to get to heaven –
And you have not doing, but done for you.
So you can pick a list, or take Christ done list.
I choose to pick the done list. Because i’ve tried and already proven to myself that there is no way i can keep any given list, no matter how easy it is. Once you fail a list once you have failed.”
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So…if im to believe the stories passed through history that somehow are still reflected truly in present peoples experiences,
if i am to believe the stories recorded in the bible then i must believe that there are also evil spiritual beings that can profile my weaknesses and sabatoge my inheritance in Christ. (And the crazy thing is they keep on using the same old plays from a playbook we have long had access to – and we keep falling for and being surprised by the plays that defeat us….)
The bible claims that there are creatures God created to serve Him and us, creatures called angels. And that a 3rd of them rebelled and refuse to serve – but instead are self serving. These angels (called devils) from the first have been lying to us and trying to and in some ways effectively destorying/destroying and swidling us from the good things Gods given us.
And lying to us.
And history has shown that we are more than willing to be lied to. That we are more than willing to believe lies. That we are more than willing to embrace and come into agreement with them. Because we like to be our own god.
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Currently i’m having to dig out, uproot, and actively battle lies i have made strong over time in my own life.
It is not easy, and more often than not i just want to re-embrace the lies.
Please join me in my struggle by praying for me to not become weary, and that i would persevere in this fight.
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What does gypped mean?
Although this term has become somewhat politically incorrect, i use it because it both clearly defines what i am trying to get to, and because in some ways it ties into what im going through where i currently am.
The dictionary states that it is a term to describe when one has received less than they paid for.
Are we – Am i – with my choices, gypping Jesus?
