Heb 11:20 By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come.
We can read more about Isaac blessing his sons in Genesis 27:1-46. (Please note… the background to the blessing of Esau and Jacob involves God’s allowance of deceit and corruption to bring about His will. This subject is much too complicated to do it justice in a daily devotion format. Therefore this aspect of our account will be ignored in this posting. Thank you for understanding.)
Here in our text, when we see that Isaac “blessed” his sons, he gave three different types of blessings material, immaterial and spiritual:
- To Jacob, Isaac declared material, immaterial and spiritualblessings from God….
- Material - “To Jacob, he promised, Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and wine:” (Gen 27:28)
- Immaterial – “Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee:” (Gen 27:29a)
- Spiritual – “cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee.” (Gen 27:29b)
- By doing this, he was passing down the Abrahamic covenant to Jacob
- To Esau, Isaac declared material and immaterialblessings from God….
- Material – “And Isaac his father answered and said unto him, Behold, thy dwelling shall be the fatness of the earth, and of the dew of heaven from above;” (Gen 27:39)
- Immaterial - “And by thy sword shalt thou live, and shalt serve thy brother; and it shall come to pass when thou shalt have the dominion, that thou shalt break his yoke from off thy neck.” (Gen 27:40)
A Godly parent is one that is concerned about all three areas of their children’s lives:
- Certainly, there is nothing wrong with passing down the Lord’s material blessings to their children. (2 Cor 12:14)
- Also, working to meet the child’s immaterial needs in life is honorable as well. Their education, manners, submission to higher authority, fulfill responsibilities given to them, qualities of leadership, ability to mediate disputes… all the different “morals” that will be needed to be successful in this earthly life are also a parents responsibility to supply to the child. (Titus 2:3-5)
- But finally, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, parents should be concerned about their children being spiritually blessed of God. Parents should be teaching them their need of salvation and the precepts of the Word, so they might live lives pleasing to God. (Deut 4:9)
Let’s be sure we are doing our best to meet the future needs of our children. We can do this by a consistent preparation NOW for the upcoming generation of servants of our Lord.
May the Lord bless each one of us as we “Think On These Things”.
SIH Homepage: http://www.settledinheaven.org
very good!
ReplyDeleteLord bless you Terry. Thank you for your kind comments. I'm praying for you.
ReplyDeleteA much needed reminder Rob.
ReplyDeleteOne of the biggest blessings - and privileges and responsibilities - we have in life is the bringing up of our children.
(I also believe one of the Church's main ministries is that to children and teens - but that is another subject)
Rob, I really appreciated how you showed us the three areas of blessings. Thank you so much and God bless you as you teach us to think on these things!
ReplyDeleteAngela,
ReplyDeleteHanding the truth down to the following generations should be a primary goal of both families and churches. Lord bless.
Debbie,
ReplyDeleteThe Lord's word is so rich with truth. For every point that any of us teach there are probably 100 that we totally miss. I know for myself, almost every time I read a Scripture I see something in it that I never saw before. What an amazing God and what an amazing Word!