Your birthright is first

The Lord is in the house

There is nothing like experiencing God in his house. When one can come and out of nowhere people begin to worship from a soft gentle prayer to a high-volume shout of praise, there is nothing like it. In fact, the bible tells to enter into his house with thanksgiving and praise, because that is the fruit of our lips (ps100:4, heb13:15). The place of worship nowadays is the place we call church, but Jesus said it resides in the spirit (Jh4:24). And Jacob found this place of worship he called the house of God. He took notice of the spiritual activity that was occurring in the place he was in, such as angels ascending and descending via a stairway connecting heaven and the place, he was in. In the house of God there is such movement with angels moving in and out, and the very presence of God manifesting. He was impacted in such a way that he took the stone that he laid his head on and poured oil on it. The rock of which he rested upon; a symbol of his dedication, he anointed with oil and set it up as pillar of remembrance in the place. 

Genesis 28:16-19

¹⁶ When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.” ¹⁷ He was afraid and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸ Early the next morning Jacob took the stone he had placed under his head and set it up as a pillar and poured oil on top of it. ¹⁹ He called that place Bethel,^e] though the city used to be called Luz.

Now Jacob was a twin. His brother and he were fighting ever since the womb. Jacob was a clean-cut young man, while his brother Esau was a rugged hunter, a fields man. And one day while Jacob was cooking some stew his brother came from the field starved almost fainting. He asked Jacob for some stew, but Jacob offered to negotiate with Esau over his birthright, if he would sell it. Esau did not find any purpose of his birthright, so he trades it for some stew.  Then, their father Isaac is in the dying bed and call the older brother Esau to give him his blessing, but first he needed to go and hunt and make him some stew. During this time Rebeka, their mother decides to have Jacob simulate his brother by putting lambs’ hair on his arms and bringing fresh stew to the dying father. Isaac is deceived and gives the blessing to Jacob and not to Esau (ge27:28-29).

When Esau found out that he had lost his blessing, he was distraught and at a loss. He was devastated at the loss of the blessing, but not so much of the birthright (ge27:34). Now the symbolism of both the birthright and the blessing were crucial in the inheritance, one could not receive one without the other. The birthright dealt with the spiritual aspects of the blessing while the blessing deals with the material things. Esau was more interested in the material things than the spiritual things while Jacob sought out the spiritual things. Jesus said that we need to seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness, and the rest will be added onto us (Mt6:33). The birthright should always be protected at all costs. John said that to them that believed God has given them the right to call children of God (Jh1:12), and there we find the birthright.