Discovering Destiny (Part 20): God’s Blessing Goes With You Everywhere You Go

https://youtu.be/WDtTqdcOr5U?si=UZmSiP-MykDSXZZc

Today, we continue our focus on THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, as we learn to maintain our posture of faith after God has revealed His plans for our future.

Yesterday, in our “Discovering Destiny” series, we watched Jacob steal the blessing with goat skins, borrowed clothes, and a lie. Today the bill comes due: Esau wants his brother dead, and Jacob has to leave home with nothing but a staff in his hand.

Key scriptures for this year:

2 Peter 3:18 GNT“But continue to grow in the grace and in the knowledge of our Savior, Jesus Christ. To Him be glory now and forever.”

Luke 10:20 Mirror“It’s time for you to rediscover who you are from Heaven’s perspective.”

1 John 3:10 Mirror“There is a very visible and vast difference between living one’s life from your God identity or from a fallen man’s mindset.”

Proverbs 25:2 NKJV“It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”

Jeremiah 29:13 NIV“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

Scripture(s) we will study today:

Genesis 27:41-45 NLT“From that time on, Esau hated Jacob because their father had given Jacob the blessing. And Esau began to scheme: ‘I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother, Jacob.’ But Rebekah heard about Esau’s plans. So she sent for Jacob and told him, ‘Listen, Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you. So listen carefully, my son. Get ready and flee to my brother, Laban, in Haran. Stay there with him until your brother cools off. When he calms down and forgets what you have done to him, I will send for you to come back. Why should I lose both of you in one day?'”

Genesis 28:1-4 NLT“So Isaac called for Jacob, blessed him, and said, ‘You must not marry any of these Canaanite women. Instead, go at once to Paddan-aram, to the house of your grandfather Bethuel, and marry one of your uncle Laban’s daughters. May God Almighty bless you and give you many children. And may your descendants multiply and become many nations! May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham. May you own this land where you are now living as a foreigner, for God gave this land to Abraham.'”

Supporting scriptures:

Hebrews 12:15 TPT“Watch over each other to make sure that no one misses the revelation of God’s grace. And make sure no one lives with a root of bitterness sprouting within them which will only cause trouble and poison the hearts of many.”

Proverbs 4:23 ERV“Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life.”

Hebrews 11:20 NLT“It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons, Jacob and Esau.”

Genesis 32:10 NLT“I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown to me, your servant. When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps!”

Setting the Stage:

By this point in the story, the scheme is over, the plan to steal the blessing had been executed, and the fallout was unfolding. Esau is not sad; he is homicidal. He is literally counting down to his father’s funeral so he can kill his brother right after. Rebekah gets word of the plot, pulls Jacob aside, and tells him to run to her brother Laban “for a little while” until Esau cools off.

Then something happens that most people read right past. Isaac calls Jacob in, and with his eyes wide open this time, no goat skins and no lies, he blesses him AGAIN. On purpose. And this second blessing is bigger than the stolen one, because this time Isaac names the covenant of Abraham. Then Jacob walks out the door with nothing but a staff.

So, what does this mean for you today? A few things.

1. Bitterness Can Comfort You While It Poisons You.

Look at how the NLT describes Esau’s state of mind: “Esau is consoling himself by plotting to kill you.” Did you catch that? The murder plot was his comfort. Rehearsing his revenge was how he got to sleep at night. That is what bitterness does. It shows up sometimes dressed like medicine. It tells you that replaying the offense, nursing the grudge, and imagining the payback will make you feel better. And it does, for a while. But while you think you are being comforted, you are actually being poisoned. And notice who Esau blamed. He hated Jacob for taking the blessing, but nobody forced Esau to sell his birthright for a bowl of stew. Bitterness rewrote his story so he was only a victim and never a guilty party.

How this applies to you:

— Genesis 27:42 NLT says Esau was “consoling himself by plotting to kill you.” Revenge may feel like comfort, but it can cost you your future.

— The devil can convince you that harboring bitterness in your heart is comforting, but there are levels of poison that it releases in your heart. Not only does it rob you of your peace and eat away at your focus (from the inside out), but it also convinces you to rewrite history (in your own mind), so you can feel more justified in your actions. 

— Hebrews 12:15 TPT says, “Make sure no one lives with a root of bitterness sprouting within them which will only cause trouble and poison the hearts of many.” Notice the word “root.” If you do not handle it, this “root” will give birth to destructive fruit.

— Bitterness will have you planning a funeral while God is planning your future.

— Look at what bitterness did to Esau’s calendar: “I will soon be mourning my father’s death. Then I will kill my brother.” He put his whole life on hold to wait for a moment of revenge. Bitterness parks you at the scene of the offense while everyone else moves on.

— Proverbs 4:23 says, “Above all, be careful what you think because your thoughts control your life.” You cannot always control what people do to you, but you decide what takes root in you.

— Be honest with yourself today: is there anyone you are “consoling yourself” about? Is there anything you have been nursing and rehearsing in your own mind/heart, because you refuse to let go of the pain? If this is you, it is time to repent, so you can get rid of that ROOT.

— In Matthew 15:13 ERV, Jesus said, “Every plant that my Father in heaven has not planted will be pulled up by the roots.” Read that again. Jesus did not say trim it, manage it, or learn to live with it. He said pull it up BY THE ROOTS. Your Father did not plant bitterness in you, so it has no right to grow in you. Esau let his root grow until it produced a murder plot. 

— Unforgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the other person gets sick. This is not God’s will. LET IT GO! Forgive. When you forgive, you not only release THEM, you release YOURSELF to get back on track to your own destiny!

2. God Will Hand You In The Open What You Tried To Take In The Dark.

Now watch this, because this is the part of the story almost nobody preaches. Days after the fraud was exposed, Isaac called Jacob in and blessed him a second time. No dim-eyed confusion. No goat skins on his hands. No “I am Esau” coming out of his mouth. Isaac knows exactly which son is standing in front of him this time, and he blesses him on purpose. And here is what amazes me: the second blessing is BIGGER than the first one. The blessing Jacob stole in Genesis 27 was about grain, wine, and nations bowing. The blessing Isaac gives freely in Genesis 28 names the covenant itself: “May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham.”

How this applies to you:

— Genesis 28:4 NLT says, “May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham.” The word spoken over Jacob in the womb was manifested in his life. What God has assigned to you is for you, and it will find you without your scheming.

— You do not have to pretend to be somebody else to receive what God wrote down for YOU before you were born.

— Deception tries to manipulate things to happen, while grace makes them happen, without deception, in a much greater way and on a much greater level!

— Jacob pretended to be Esau to get blessed, and it got him a fraction. Later, he stood there as Jacob and received the full covenant. This is all grace. Jacob did not deserve it, but God did it for him anyway!

— Think about who handed him that second blessing: Isaac, the very man he lied to. This teaches me that when God confirms His plan for your life, He can even use the people you did wrong to bless you. Grace can restore what manipulation almost destroyed.

— Some of you are still performing, still posturing, still positioning, and still plotting, because you are not sure that God will do it without your manipulation. But I hope these messages are helping you to simply trust God. If God said it, He will do it. If God promised it, He will bring it to pass, and you don’t have to trick anyone to get there.

— You don’t have to finesse or maneuver your way into God’s best. Just stand before God as who you are (Many times, I say to God: “All that I am, and all that I am not, it all belongs to you.), because God is committed to bless what He created in your life. 

— The late Bishop Nathaniel “Nate” Holcomb taught me a Hebrew lesson I never forgot. The Hebrew word for create is “bara,” and scripture only uses that word with God as the subject, because only God can create something out of nothing. The Hebrew word for bless is “barak.” Bishop said, “God only baraks what He baras.” God only blesses what He creates. Now think about what that means for Jacob. He got a blessing wearing goat skins and borrowed clothes, but God did not create Jacob-pretending-to-be-Esau, so heaven had no obligation to that costume. The blessing with your name on it does not respond to a disguise. Stop trying to be someone else. God will not bless the counterfeit version of you, because He did not create it. The anointing only flows through the authentic.

3. An Intentional Blessing Travels Farther Than The Voice That Speaks It.

Now slow down and look at what Isaac actually does in Genesis 28, because this is one of the most powerful moments in the chapter. Isaac is an old man in a house his son’s lie just tore apart. His wife schemed against him. One son is packing to break camp, and the other is planning a murder. If anyone had an excuse to go silent, it was Isaac. Instead, he calls Jacob in, opens his mouth, and speaks: “May God Almighty bless you… May God pass on to you and your descendants the blessings he promised to Abraham.” Do you see what happened? Isaac was not making a wish; he was making a transfer. The covenant God gave Abraham traveled to Isaac, and now it travels to Jacob, and every time it moved, it moved the same way: on the words of an intentional blessing, spoken out loud, on purpose. Hebrews 11:20 looks back at this exact moment and says, “It was by faith that Isaac promised blessings for the future to his sons.” Isaac blessed Jacob concerning things he would never live to see. The nations, the multiplied descendants, the land: Isaac was dead long before any of it showed up. The blessing outlived the man who spoke it.

How this applies to you:

— A blessing is not a compliment, and it is not a wish. It is a transfer, and it moves on words.

— Hebrews 11:20 says Isaac blessed his sons “by faith… for the future.” When you bless someone by faith, you are not inventing anything. You are putting your voice in agreement with what God already promised.

— The blessing you speak today can still be working after you are gone. Isaac never saw Jacob’s two camps. He never saw the twelve tribes. But his words did.

— Notice WHEN Isaac blessed Jacob: in the middle of the worst week of that family’s life. Do not wait for perfect conditions to bless your children. If Isaac could bless a son who was about to flee in a household that was in shambles, then you can bless your children today.

— Many of you are alive in God right now because somebody spoke over you: a grandmother who prayed, a pastor who prophesied, a parent who declared. You are the proof that an intentional blessing travels.

— So here is the question: whose Isaac are you? Who is waiting on words that only you can speak? Bless your children out loud, by name, on purpose. Do not just think it, and do not just feel it. Say it. A blessing left unspoken transfers nothing. Faith is voice-activated!

4. What God Put On You Goes Where You Go.

Now watch Jacob walk out the door, because this scene can preach. He leaves home with nothing. No flocks. No servants. No inheritance in hand. He will never see his mother again. He left with nothing but a blessing and a stick! If you saw him on the road that day, you would have said he lost everything. But he had not, because the one thing that mattered went with him. The blessing was never in the house. The blessing was on the man. Twenty years later, Jacob himself will look back at that road and pray, “When I left home and crossed the Jordan River, I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps!“

How this applies to you:

— Genesis 32:10 NLT says, “I owned nothing except a walking stick. Now my household fills two large camps!” Everything Jacob built over the next twenty years came out of what was ON him, not what was left behind him.

— The blessing is on you, not on your address.

— Esau kept the house, the flocks, and the comfort, and lost the covenant. Jacob lost the house and kept the covenant. Do not measure your life by what you had to leave; measure it by what you carry.

— Consequences changed Jacob’s location, but they could not cancel his covenant. I told you earlier in this series that your foolish decisions may not change your destiny, but they will impact the route. The route just got hard. The destiny stayed intact.

— You can lose the house and still keep the blessing.

— Maybe a consequence, a layoff, a divorce, a failure, or a fallout has you starting over with nothing but a staff in your hand. Do not panic. What God put ON you did not stay behind. It cannot be confiscated, and the people you left do not get to keep it.

— And here is your preview for tomorrow: this runaway is about to stop for the night in the middle of nowhere, put his head on a rock, and watch heaven open. God is not done with Jacob, and He is not done with you. If you are in a running season, keep walking. The blessing is running with you.

That’s enough for today.

Declaration of Faith:

Father, I thank You that the blessing You put on my life goes with me everywhere I go!

I refuse bitterness; I will not drink poison and call it comfort!

I guard my heart, because my whole life flows from it!

I forgive quickly, and I hand every offense to You!

You bless the real me, so I take off the costume today!

What grace gives is always bigger than what scheming grabs!

I open my mouth and speak blessing, on purpose, over my children, my family, and my future!

My consequences can change my address, but they cannot cancel my covenant!

I may leave with a staff, but I am coming back with camps!

Your blessing is on me, and it is going where I am going!

This is THE YEAR OF DISCOVERY, and GREATER IS COMING FOR ME!

I declare this by faith. In Jesus’ name. Amen!

This is Today’s Word. Apply it and prosper!