Live Your Blessing February 16, 2026 Devotional

GENESIS 27:41-44 | ⁴¹ Now Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing with which his father had blessed him, and Esau said to himself, “The days of mourning for my father are approaching; then I will kill my brother Jacob.” ⁴² But the words of her elder son Esau were told to Rebekah, so she sent and called her younger son Jacob and said to him, “Your brother Esau is consoling himself by planning to kill you. ⁴³ Now therefore, my son, obey my voice; flee at once to my brother Laban in Haran, ⁴⁴ and stay with him a while, until your brother’s fury turns away—

Jacob did not deserve God’s blessing. He was deluded by ambition, fueled by ego, obsessed and possessed by the unholy goal of personal success. In the achievement of his ends he was willing to sacrifice sacred relationships and flaunt moral rules.

He deceived his aged father with an elaborate disguise, impersonating his brother Esau, to steal his brother’s precious blessing. The plan for this act of family sabotage was hatched in a conniving plot with his mother, creating a legacy of hurt and anger within his own family. Having defrauded his brother and dad he was forced to flee, a con man running for cover, having alienated the ones closest to his own heart.

Everyone has a Jacob inside. A dark side. A shadow personality. No one is exempt from their own particular temptations, whether driven by ambition, lust, fear, avarice, or anger.

Do you know your shadow self? What is your strategy for dealing with your dark side?

Gracious God,

Give me a trenchant realism about my own temptations. Guard my heart and mind from the schemes that deceive and divide me from others and from You.

Amen.