Unless God builds it it will not stand.
There were two brothers, same Father, one was chosen one was not. Some are made for honor and others for dishonor and only time shows their true worth. We know that God chooses whom He wills and His ways are beyond our understanding. Jacob, far from perfect, fought for his birthright and Essau sold his for a bowl of soup.
The Book of Genesis speaks of the relationship between Jacob and Esau, focusing on Esau's loss of his birthright to Jacob and the conflict that had spawned between their descendant nations because of Jacob's deception of their aged and blind father, Isaac, in order to receive Esau's birthright/blessing from Isaac.
In Genesis, Esau returned to his brother, Jacob, being famished from the fields. He begged his twin brother to give him some "red pottage". Jacob offered to give Esau a bowl of stew in exchange for his birthright (the right to be recognized as firstborn) and Esau agreed.
This conflict was paralleled by the affection the parents had for their favored child: "Now Isaac loved Esau, because he did eat of his venison, and Rebekah loved Jacob." (Genesis 25:28). Even since conception, their conflict was foreshadowed: "And the children struggled together within her; and she said, If it be so, why am I thus? And she went to enquire of the Lord. And the Lord said unto her, Two nations are in thy womb, and two manner of people shall be separated from thy bowels; and the one people shall be stronger than the other people; and the elder shall serve the younger." (Genesis 25:22–23)
In the measure that we treasure our relationship with God is how much we can be used by Him for our good and the good of His Church. It isn’t about our goodness it is about His.
The contrast between the words love and hate here seems much too strong. But on many occasions in the OT, the verb hate has the basic meaning “not to choose.” God’s love for Jacob was expressed in His electing grace in extending His covenant to Jacob and to his descendants. In His sovereign purpose, God set His love on the one and not the other. The term hate may carry the idea of indifference as well.
Malachi 1:2–3 (NKJV)
2 “I have loved you,” says the Lord.
“Yet you say, ‘In what way have You loved us?’
Was not Esau Jacob’s brother?”
Says the Lord.
“Yet Jacob I have loved;
3 But Esau I have hated,
And laid waste his mountains and his heritage
For the jackals of the wilderness.”
9 You whom I have taken from the ends of the earth, And called from its farthest regions, And said to you, ‘You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away:
Isaiah 41:9
12 This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.
John 15:12
9 I will make you perpetually desolate, and your cities shall be uninhabited; then you shall know that I am the Lord.
Ezekiel 35:9
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