Soup du Jour

“One day Jacob was cooking a stew.  Esau came in from the field, starved…‘Give me some…I’m starved!’ Jacob said, ‘Make me a trade:  my stew for your rights as the firstborn.’  On oath Esau traded away …That’s how Esau shrugged off his rights as the firstborn.” Genesis 25:29-34.

Double, double, toil and trouble…Satan stirs the pot.  That is what happened with our brothers in our passage today as they jockeyed for power and blessings in their household.   One prepared… the other desired.  One was calculative…the other impulsive.  One preyed upon while the other was the prey.  Esau came to the table with exaggerated emotions (He stated he was going to die).  His stew was boiling with selfish driven desires and immediate satisfaction.  I am amazed at how easily he switched his birthright for a bowl of soup – not even sirloin soup but lentil soup!  Yuck!

Satan will use our emotions, desires and weaknesses as ingredients for the world’s stew that temporarily satisfies and comes at a cost.  When we allow our emotions, rights and desires to be stirred by the flesh instead of the Spirit we too will trade things for temporary gain.  The other day I dragged in from the field and traded my peace for a bowl of approval.  It didn’t even taste good going down – definitely lentils and not steak.  We must be stirred by the Spirit and use ingredients from the Word…one cup of faith, another cup of self-discipline, and add in a stick of prayer that will cook into the entire batch. 

We were created for an inheritance in Christ and we cannot shrug off our rights and hand over our walk to Satan through the flesh.  With God in our spiritual kitchen, the soup du jour will be stirred with all of the fruits of the Spirit and will always satisfy the pallet.