Don't forget to check out our NEW BIBLE STUDY PLANS!
Search

On a personal note – All Trades aren’t Equal

FILED UNDER

POSTED ON

May 5, 2022

As the boys grew up, Esau became a skillful hunter. He was an outdoorsman, but Jacob had a quiet temperament, preferring to stay at home. Isaac loved Esau because he enjoyed eating the wild game Esau brought home, but Rebekah loved Jacob. One day when Jacob was cooking some stew, Esau arrived home from the wilderness exhausted and hungry. Esau said to Jacob, “I’m starved! Give me some of that red stew!” (This is how Esau got his other name, Edom, which means “red.”) “All right,” Jacob replied, “but trade me your rights as the firstborn son.” “Look, I’m dying of starvation!” said Esau. “What good is my birthright to me now?” But Jacob said, “First you must swear that your birthright is mine.” So Esau swore an oath, thereby selling all his rights as the firstborn to his brother, Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau some bread and lentil stew. Esau ate the meal, then got up and left. He showed contempt for his rights as the firstborn.

Genesis 25:27‭-‬34 NLT

It’s hard to see the future, when faced with a pressing situation in the present. It clouds your judgement and can cause you to make bad decisions. Giving in to hunger in the flesh caused Esau to give away his birthrights. While reading this passage, it’s easy to see the error in Esau and Jacob’s ways. Jacob manipulated his brother while in a vulnerable state and Esau allowed his present situation to cause him to make a decision that had future consequences.

As I was reading this, the Holy Spirit reminded me that as a child of God, I have birthrights. Birthrights that I had decided to give away based on current circumstances. Birthrights that I had forfeited because of the world’s manipulation. I’d traded in the Lord’s peace for the world’s neverending checklists and anxieties. I restrained my love of others out of fear of betrayal. I suppressed my joy under the worries of this world. And so much more…

Don’t let the world shortchange you from your birthright! It’s not always easy to see the fairness of the trade in the moment. The Holy Spirit showed me that this particular trade is not fair, nor equal. As a child of God, anxiety, fear, and sadness are not your portion. Your birthright includes access to the Lord’s abundance. Walk in peace, Laugh with joy, Cover others in love, for that is your birthright.

Share this post

Popular Posts

read all —

Unhindered Minds: Winning the Battle for Your Thoughts

Scripture is clear that spiritual warfare is real, and it does not primarily play out in dramatic moments. It happens quietly, internally, thought by thought. Paul reminds us in Ephesians that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against spiritual forces. The enemy rarely begins with overt rebellion. He begins with little lies. A thought here. An assumption there. A narrative repeated often enough that it starts to feel true. Over time, footholds become strongholds when those thoughts go unchallenged. A foothold might sound like, “This is just how I am.” A stronghold sounds like, “This will never change.” Both shape how we live.
Hebrews 12:1 calls us to lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and then it tells us how. We run with endurance by fixing our eyes on Jesus. The race is not just about outward obedience. It is about where our focus rests. What we fix our minds on determines how we run. When our thinking is cluttered, we run distracted and weary. When our thinking is anchored in truth, we run lighter, freer, and with purpose.

Read More

Unhindered Emotions: Why We Need to Steward What We Feel

Emotions are not a design flaw. They are part of God’s good creation. They are not sinful in themselves, even when they feel intense or inconvenient. Jesus, fully God and fully man, felt the full range. Luke tells us He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit with joy that overflowed. John records the shortest verse in Scripture, “Jesus wept” (John 11:35), reminding us that sorrow has a place in holy ground. Mark shows us His righteous anger as He looked around at hardened hearts with grief mixed in (Mark 3:5). Matthew lets us overhear His deep distress in Gethsemane when He said, “My soul is very sorrowful, even to death” (Matthew 26:38). Over and over again, we see compassion move Him toward people, not away from them. If Jesus felt emotions without sinning, we need to stop labeling emotions themselves as the problem.

Read More

Steward the Season You’re In

To be unhindered is not to have a flawless plan or a perfectly curated life. It is to clear away the distractions that keep us from being faithful right where we are. It is to remember that our identity is in Christ, not in comparison, not in productivity, not in striving. And because God is our source, we are not dependent on systems that exhaust us. We lean into the Holy Spirit who sustains us. Steward It Well

Read More
a woman running with her child

Unhindered: A Call to Run Freely

And as we sit here in 2026, I think many of us aren’t tangled up in obvious sin and rebellion. We’re actually exhausted by accumulation. Expectations. Distractions. Comparisons. The pressure to do more and be more, even when God hasn’t asked us to.
That’s why the Word of the Year, Unhindered, is so timely and fitting.
We’ve got to get more honest about what we’re carrying. We often assume that spiritual growth and maturity are tied to adding more and increase, but here in Hebrews, we see the opposite. We see release. Casting things off. Laying things aside. Surrender.
It’s an invitation to reflection. What has slowly attached itself to us? What fills our days and dulls our discernment? What keeps us busy, but lacking real fruit?

Read More