He Shall Be Blessed!

February 11

Read: Genesis 27:1-33

Genesis 27 is the story of the stolen blessing. Isaac had grown old and half-blind, and he recognized the time of his death was near. So he called his oldest son, Esau, and instructed him to go and kill a deer and prepare a meal for his old father, that Isaac might bless his son before he died. Jacob’s mother, Rebekah, overheard Isaac’s instructions and conspired with Jacob to steal the blessing. Preparing a goat stew and wrapping the skins around Jacob’s wrists and neck, she sent Jacob in to his father. Jacob told Isaac a pack of lies and walked out with a blessing.

The tent flap was still waving from Jacob’s exit when Esau came in with his stew. It didn’t take too long for the two of them to figure out what happened, with the result that Isaac trembled and Esau threatened. In spite of the fact the blessing had been stolen, Isaac lamented in verse 33, “…yea, and he shall be blessed.”

Isaac’s faith was strong; strong enough to be certain that a blessing pronounced, stolen or not, would be honored by God. He didn’t try to talk God out of it, and he refused to try to give Esau what he had already given Jacob. He knew he had asked God in good faith to bless Jacob, and that God would answer his prayer.

Many of us have problems with our prayer life. We ask wavering, even though we know that James said a double-minded man would receive nothing. We often pray as though we’re just reciting a liturgy, our prayers essentially no different than the Catholic’s rosary or the Episcopalian’s Book of Common Prayer. Isaac prayed with faith! He had so much faith that having asked God to bless Jacob he could not bring himself to ask the same things for Esau.

In Matthew chapter 17, a young man possessed of a demon is brought to the disciples. They were unable to help the young man, and his father appealed to Jesus directly. After Jesus cast out the demon, the disciples asked Jesus why they had been unable to do so. Jesus answered thus: “Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.”

Today, pray in faith.

Just a servant,

Bro. Tom