For today, read through Genesis chapter 27.

DEVOTIONAL:

"Esau cried with an exceeding great and bitter cry." - Genesis 27:34

On this incident the writer to the Hebrews founds the impressive lesson, that the choices of the past may cast a bitter and irrevocable shadow on all our future. When he afterward desired to inherit blessing he was rejected; for he found no place of repentance, though he sought it diligently with tears (Heb_12:16-17, R.V.).

Beware of the cravings of appetite.—In an evil moment Esau yielded to these, and sold his birthright to secure their gratification; he found afterwards that the choice made in that hour was irrevocable. How needful that we watch and pray, lest we fall into temptation!

There are four facts which, when borne in mind, guard us against the sudden oversetting of passionate appetite.

We were once dead in sins.—Surely we do not want to go back again to the charnel-house with its corruption.

We died for sins in the person of Christ our Representative.—In Him we have met the demands of God's holy law; but surely that must be an awful thing which cost our Savior so dearly.

We died to sin with the Lord Jesus.—We have passed with Him on to Resurrection ground; so that we belong to the new heavens and new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.

We are called on to reckon ourselves dead to sin.—The nearer we live to God, the more sensitive we shall be to the most distant suggestion of evil, closing doors and windows against its entrance, reckoning ourselves "not at home" to it, and yielding our members as instruments of righteousness unto God.

 –FB Meyer