Standing Strong |
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Isaiah 11:6 2 Thessalonians 2:15 |
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Are you a people pleaser or a G-d pleaser? |
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Seeking to please man or G-d and the need to seek the L-rd’s approval even over that or your father.
This week’s Torah Portion brings forward the beginning of the story of Esau and Jacob. Most people are very aware of the story and often find fault with the deceiving usurper Jacob. I don’t see him that way at all. Jacob stayed at home and studied the ways of the L-rd and the ways of running a camp. Esau went out hunting because his father ate game. Esau sought to please his father as his number one concern. This shows again later. He comes back from hunting and is hungry. Jacob, pursuing the blessing of G-d tells his brother he will give him food in exchange for the birth rite of the first born. The First born is the one set aside for the Priesthood. Esau cares nothing of this. He has spent his life hunting, not studying and preparing for a role of leadership in the matters of the L-rd. And then lastly, when Jacob, on the insistence of his mother, remember the command to honor your father and mother, receives Esau’s blessing that his brother would serve him, then goes to find a wife from among his kinsmen. Esau had two wives already from the land and they were said to be a burden upon Isaac and Rebecca. Esau in seeing it would be pleasing to his father to have a bride from among the kinsmen for Jacob, goes and marries again, still seeking his father’s approval above all else. Esau seeks to do harm to his brother, who being the soft-spoken man of G-d seeks to maintain peace and harmony as would be pleasing to the L-rd. We have a man pleaser, Esau; and a G-d pleaser, Jacob. The blessing goes to the one seeking G-d’s approval, not the one seeking his earthly fathers approval. Oh, and a parting note for those who like to speak ill of Jacob; Isaac’s blessing to Jacob, “Cursed be everyone who curses you, and blessed be everyone who blesses you.”
Selah. |
