A CURSE AND A BLESSING

Here's something I wrote back in early 2004, unedited:

I have finally finished reading the entire Bible!!!

Of course, it comes a bit late... I vowed to finish it this past summer, haha.  Better late than never, right?  I've read the NT over a few times, but I finally finished the entire OT just a few minutes ago.  But, yeah...it feels good to know that I've finished the Bible.  I consider it a great blessing to have been given the opportunity for my eyes to behold every word of God in the Bible...though I definitely cannot claim to have retained or even learned from the majority of it.  But, the more and more I read it...the more and more I understand just how many "layers" there are, just how much there is to discover.  It seems like every time I read a passage over again, I see something new.  It's awesome... I can't wait to see what new things I learn as I read it all over again.

One thing that caught my attention was how the Old Testament ends.  "He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse." (Malachi 4:6)  Now...maybe it's just me, but I thought that that was a horribly pessimistic and condeming way to end the OT.  I mean, of course, God didn't intend the OT to be just a "good story" to read with a fairy tale ending...but I mean, c'mon...how you gonna end it with a curse?! So, in my curiosity, I looked up this verse in a commentary online (by Matthew Henry), and it pointed something out that I found to be quite enlightening.

Yes, the Old Testament ends with a curse, but it does so that we may joyfully welcome the New Testament's arrival, which marks Christ's arrival, for He comes not with a curse, but with a great blessing.  And isn't it wonderful, that though the OT ends with a curse, the NT ends with a beautiful blessing: "The grace of our Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen." (Rev. 22:21)  And, as Matthew Henry puts it, "with it let us arm ourselves, or rather let God arm us, against this curse."

Hallelujah, Amen.

"But for you who revere my name, the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings. And you will go out and leap like calves released from the stall." - Malachi 4:2

Fwd

During the past six months I've received a lot of forwarded mail. This is, of course, mail that was addressed to my home in New Jersey, but forwarded to my apartment in Evanston, IL. On every piece of forwarded mail, there is a yellow sticker that indicates my new address.

I think many of the blessings that we receive in our lives are like forwarded mail.

As we should know, our home is not here - it is heaven. Earth is only our temporary address.

And, as the Bible says, "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above..." (James 1:17, ESV)

So, I think it should be the joyful duty of every Christian to make sure to look for the "forwarding label" on every parcel received from home, so that every blessing will not cause us to grow more content with our place here, but remind us that our home is above.