To Live is Christ — reading all that He has revealed

While some Christians never read the Old Testament because they think it no longer has any meaning for them, they might be forgetting that the early Christians had no other Scripture. In fact, the New Testament says,

For whatever things were written before were written for our learning, that we through the patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope. (Romans 15:4)

Through reading the Old Testament, I learn about the patience (or perseverance) of God and am comforted that He never gives up on His plans.

In this week’s passage, the words of the Lord are directed to the nation of Israel, not to the church. Although these words are about them, I can see specific meaning and instruction in them for me. The passage also reveals much about God. 

Then the Lord appeared to Solomon by night, and said to him: “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually. As for you, if you walk before Me as your father David walked, and do according to all that I have commanded you, and if you keep My statutes and My judgments, then I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father, saying, ‘You shall not fail to have a man as ruler in Israel.’ “But if you turn away and forsake My statutes and My commandments which I have set before you, and go and serve other gods, and worship them, then I will uproot them from My land which I have given them; and this house which I have sanctified for My name I will cast out of My sight, and will make it a proverb and a byword among all peoples. (2 Chronicles 7:12–20)

From these verses, I understand that God hears prayer. He also decides where we must worship and how our sacrifices and service ought to be offered to Him.

The passage says that God controls the weather, the activity of insects and presumably the actions of all other critters. He can even send a plague on humanity if He chooses, but He can also reverse all these things and bless the land and its people.

God looks for humble hearts, listens for prayer, waits for repentance and longs for purity and obedience in His people. He wants those who follow Him to uphold His name. He is with us and watches us as we live before Him. He can also establish my position in life, particularly as I obey Him. He is faithful to keep His promises. All these things are to me a comfort and a hope.

This Old Testament passage also warns about idolatry and says He can uproot those who fall away from Him, making their lives a shambles. He warns that the world will notice when God deals with the disobedience of His people.

These warnings to His chosen people are dire and differ in some ways from God’s promises in the New Testament. In it, I am told that God will never leave me or forsake me. This isn’t because He has changed His mind about the seriousness of sin, but because He has changed my mind about sin. Unlike Israel of old, I have the Spirit of God living in me, even the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16). Because of that, I don’t want to forsake Him. Further, although I still sometimes sin, by His grace He forgives, restores and renews me each day.

The richness of God’s character and the power of His being as seen in the Old Testament give me great joy and even more reason to celebrate the grace revealed in Jesus Christ. Some parts may not make sense (yet), but God encourages me to keep reading. To know Him more intimately means to read everything that He has revealed about Himself.