"What Profit?"

"Please feed me with that same red stew, for I am weary."

"Sell me your birthright as of this day."

"Look, I am about to die; so what profit shall this birthright be to me?"

"Swear to me as of this day."

So he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. And Jacob gave Esau bread and stew of lentils; then he ate and drank, arose, and went his way. Thus Esau despised his birthright.

This exchange between these two brothers always causes me to take a moment to examine my heart, to check and see that I am still giving God first place in my life. The statement Esau made had a few words in it that are key to the choice he made.
"What profit shall this birthright be," was key because it shows that Esau was making a decision about which he wanted more. His birthright meant that, as the first born, he was given preference and a double portion. He decide that it was of less value in the long run then, having soup in the moment.

I find it interesting that they felt a birthright was valuable enough that it could be bartered and sold. It ends this exchange with these words. "Thus Esau despised his birthright." I looked it up in the Strongs and it simple means; to disesteem. Esau didn't esteem his birthright as being of "great value." He sold it for a bowl of soup. In that moment he desired soup more that his place of preference and his double portion.

How often do we not "Esteem" as His sons and daughters because of what we want and desire in the moment we are in? Jesus put it this way.

"For whoever desires to save his life must lose it, and whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?