Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Is a Blessed Life the Best Life? | Torah | Genesis 28:1-9

Episode Date: March 9, 2022

What do you think of when you hear the word "blessed?" Good health? A successful career? An easy life? Are you blessed? In today's episode, Jensen looks at Jacob's blessing to Isaac in Genesis 28:1-9. Find out the responsibility that comes with a blessed life. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: Genesis 28:1-9 Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now.

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. Right now, we're going through the first book of the Bible, Genesis. When you hear the word blessed, what do you think? You might think of a hashtag or a little decor sign your mom or grandma has over in the living room. Maybe you think about phrases like too blessed to be stressed or blessed to be a blessing. It's probably because of these cultural phrases that our view of blessings and being blessed can be a mixed bag. Whatever you think of, or however you feel towards the cultural use of blessed, you probably still believe that blessing has a positive connotation. People who are blessed are given good things. If you're blessed, then life should be easy for you.

If you're blessed with wealth, then you don't have to worry about meeting your bills. If you're blessed with health, then you don't have to deal with doctor visits and pain. If you're blessed with family, then you don't have to experience the loneliness of going through life alone. It seems like a logical, harmless train of thought. But when thinking this way translates to our Christian faith, it can actually wreak havoc if it's left unchecked. I'm talking about the belief that because I am blessed by God and chosen by God that life is going to be easy. Maybe you hear that and you think, no, that's not me. I don't think that. I know that's not true. I hear that idea and I know that it isn't true. But if I look at my life, the truth that I know in my head

doesn't always play out in my daily life. See, I think I really do expect life to be easy for me. I may not want to say that out loud, but it shows. It shows when life gets hard and I get frustrated. Like in the middle of the night, when my son is crying again and it's 2 a.m. and he won't go to sleep, my first reaction is to get really frustrated. And then I pray that he would go to sleep so I can get some rest. Or when I start to feel sick, I pray that it won't get too bad and that'll feel better soon. Or when my life starts to feel overwhelming and I feel anxiety coming on, I pray that God would take away whatever it is that's causing me anxiety. My prayer life says a lot about what I actually believe. I expect and want life to be easy for me.

I want it to be comfortable and I think because God loves me, because He's blessed me. He should oblige. Are you like me? When things aren't going your way, is your first reaction frustration? Is your gut reaction to difficulty to pray that whatever it is that's making your life hard would go away?

I'm not saying that to pray that to pray, that to pray for healing or relief is wrong. But I think when it's my first reaction every time, when I always think that the best thing is for my life to get back to easy, well, there has to be a deeper issue going on. See, deep down, I think I get frustrated when life is hard because I believe I deserve easy. I'm mad when hardship happens, when life is difficult.

I complain, I kick my feet, I tell God how it should have been. and my heart, it begins to question if he really is faithful to his promise of blessing if life is this hard right now. See, it's not fun to admit, but it's how I feel a lot of the time. The problem is that the idea that blessing equals an easy life, that isn't biblical. Nowhere in the Bible does God promise has an easy life. Despite this, it's easy to get it confused. It's easy to read passages about God's blessing and God's promises and think it means our life is going to be easy. That if we just believe enough or are good enough, then God is going to give us even more blessing and we'll be living the good life. But that just doesn't fall in line with Scripture.

Just think of all the people in Scripture who were blessed by God, who received his promises and who had to face difficult things. For one, just think of Jesus. He obviously lived a faithful life. He believed the promises of God the Father. He had blessings from the father. And yet, he was born into poverty. He was a refugee. Even in ministry, he traveled and relied on others' generosity for his livelihood. And eventually, he was brutally murdered for his faithfulness. Difficult and uncomfortable lives are not what comes to mind when we think of blessing. But they are the hallmark examples of faithful witness seen throughout scripture. Oftentimes, blessing from God, it goes hand in hand with hardship. And today's passage puts this on full display. Genesis 28

starts out with Isaac blessing Jacob again, and this time he isn't being tricked. He blesses Jacob knowingly, acknowledging that God has chosen Jacob as the heir. His blessing echoes the promises that God makes to Abraham. Isaac says, may God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers until you become a community of peoples. May he give you and your descendants the blessing given to Abraham so that you may take possession of the land where you now reside as a foreigner, the land God gave to Abraham. It's beautiful and inspiring, full of hope and promise for Jacob's life. And yet, Isaac's blessing comes along with a command. Then he commanded him, do not marry a Canaanite woman, go at once to Badam Aram, to the house of your mother's father, Bethuel, and take a wife for yourself

there from among the daughters of Laban, your mother's brother. This might seem strange to us, but just a few verses before in chapter 27 were told that Issa, Jacob's brother, has married Hittite women, and they've caused the family a lot of grief. This is most likely because of their differences in beliefs. This is something that Scripture warns against. We see that being married to someone outside of the nation of Israel, outside of the faith, consistently causes people to fall into sin. And so Jacob is commanded to go out and take a wife that is from his mother's family,

someone with the same beliefs as his family. Because he's the heir to Abraham's promise, the one through whom God will bless the nations around him, he's called to obedience. And right now, that's going to play out in who he marries. See, with Jacob's blessing comes the command to be faithful in the choice of his wife. And it's obedience to this command that's going to lead him into difficulty. See, instead of staying in his comfortable life and living in ease with his new blessing from

his father, Jacob has to pack up and go out. He has to leave his family behind. He leaves the home he's known for his entire life. He has no idea when he will return or if he ever will. He has to now make a journey on foot to a land he doesn't know to find a wife from his mother's family, despite there being plenty of women readily available right around him. But God calls him to be faithful. He calls him to obedience in who he marries, even if it completely flips his life upside down.

See, this command's placement is not a coincidence. Jacob's blessing is immediately followed by the command to be faithful, even when it made his life more difficult. See, God's blessing has never been about an easy life. God's blessing is for the good of his people, but good isn't always easiest. Remember, Jesus was faithful to his calling, and it led him to a wandering life and a brutal death by crucifixion. We are blessed for a purpose. We are called to be faithful. And in that faithfulness, we will face difficulty. See, in the same way that the Lord blessed Jacob with an

inheritance, the Lord has blessed you with an inheritance. Ephesians tells us that we are heirs in Christ, adopted sons and daughters. We will receive an inheritance of eternal value. You are adopted as an air in an eternal kingdom, where all that his wrong will be made right and we will live with our creator forever in a state of beauty and worship. That is a great blessing. But just as with Jacob, this also comes with a command. Lay down your life. Die to yourself, pick up your cross. You are no longer your own. In our world, attaining the good life more often than not, it means having the luxury of living for yourself, making yourself comfortable, doing what you want to do when you want to do it. But the gospel calls us to something completely different, something much more

difficult. We are made heirs so that we can invite others into God's family. We're given an inheritance so that we can generously and sacrificially give of ourselves to others. Our blessing calls us to live a life that is faced outward, a life that is countercultural. It's not going to be easy. Jesus tells us in John 16 that we will face trouble in this world. 1 Peter 4 tells us not to be surprised by the trials we face because of our faith. 2 Timothy 3 tells us that all who desire to live a godly life will be persecuted. When we're faithful to the blessing and commands of the gospel, our lives might be not be what we initially think of when we see the hashtag blessed on social media.

But the blessing that comes from faithfully laying down our lives for the sake of God's kingdom is far greater. Jacob listened to his father's command. He took the hard road and was obedient to the blessing he was given. And we're going to see the way that God uses his hardship to shape his life and grow him as we continue throughout Genesis. When we're We live in light of the blessing of God, our lives will look different. We're called to be faithful even when that faithfulness leads to difficulty. What is the Lord calling you to this week that feels like the hardship he asked of Jacob? Maybe there's a person the Lord is laying on your heart to talk to.

Someone who isn't easy to talk to. Maybe they're awkward. Maybe they aren't your favorite person, but you know they need community. Maybe you're thinking of a sin you need to turn away from. It might be hard to fight that sin. It might mean removing yourself from places of temptation and denying your desires, but God is calling you to faithfully fight sin as his adopted sons and daughters. Maybe there's a practice you need to cultivate in your life to live in line with the blessing you've been given.

Whatever it is, I challenge you to spend some time today, ask where the Lord might be calling you into hard places and to pray that he would give you the strength to live a life that is faithful to his blessing. Before you forget, sign up for the 10-minute Bible Talks newsletter. Hit the link in the show notes and you'll get an email every Wednesday that will help encourage you in the middle of the work week and bring you deeper in your walk with Jesus. Thanks for listening.