Thought for Today: “Fire Sale”

Most Americans know that they can get a great deal on a product when they see a store holding a fire sale. Now, originally a fire sale referred to items on sale that were damaged in a fire. But now it applies when a business is in financial distress and needs to get some cash quick, and so they sell their products at heavily discounted prices.

Now, as we look at this from the perspective of our lives in Christ, it would indicate people who are putting their themselves on the auctioning block and are willing to sell, at a heavily discounted price, their souls, to attain something they feel they need.

This is what Esau did, when he sold his birthright to his brother Jacob for a bowl of stew. The story is found in Genesis 25. Esau and been hunting all day and when he came back it says he was weary, to the point of total exhaustion and asked Jacob for a bowl of stew that was on the fire. Jacob asked him to sell him his birthright for the stew, and Esau said, ‘I am about to die; so what is this birthright to me?” and it says he despised his birthright.

Esau needed some food, but it really wasn’t a life-or-death issue. And so, he had a fire sale for his birthright. And it was something that he regretted later on.

As I read this story and think about this term, “fire sale,” I am reminded of our need to stop putting our souls on fire sale for the passing pleasures of this world.

Solomon said, “There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.” (Proverbs 14:12)