2021-03-14 10:27:25

The Curse

Now as long as you're just hanging there, pay attention. The only rules that really matter are these: what a man can do and what a man can't do. For instance, you can accept that your father was a pirate and a good man or you can't. But pirate is in your blood, boy, so you'll have to square with that some day. And me, for example, I can let you drown, but I can't bring this ship into Tortuga all by me onesies, savvy? So, can you sail under the command of a pirate, or can you not?

Pirates of the Caribbean, Captain Jack Sparrow

Yesterday I watched the first part of Pirates of the Caribbean with my fiancée, I had seen it once before maybe ten years ago. It's a pretty funny movie, pretty macabre. And then there's this old pattern of a curse on a large group of people that can only be solved by spilled blood. They can't pay with their own blood. Yes, there is not even real blood flowing in their veins anymore. Someone else must break the curse by shedding his blood, savvy?
Of course, this does not tell the story, but what I have summarized here concerns us, you and me. We were also cursed. Before you think I'm a crank, think about this: we're alive and it's beautiful and we don't know how long we can enjoy it. It could be over tomorrow or it could be over today. I live in Germany a country full of laws and insurances, yes also full of prosperity, and all that the insurances and the law bring me, if I pass away tomorrow, is even more prosperity, which I will not enjoy, but my next relatives, or nothing at all....
We live and work, have relationships and earn our necessary or even more, some even less. And with all this we can't be sure, it can be over tomorrow forever. This is only one part of the curse, another part is that in many cases our work does not even bring us joy. It often brings us only the most necessary for survival, but fills our lives neither with meaning nor with pleasure, but simply robs us of a third of the time we are awake, or even more. We live and enjoy, if one may call it so, "by the sweat of our brow", to use the words from the first book of the Bible in which this curse is written. (Genesis 3:14-19)
That's not all, but enough for this frame. We are under a curse and it is a curse that is also broken only by blood. We cannot break the curse by shedding our own blood, nor can we break it by shedding the blood of others.
The good news is that Jesus shed his blood to free us from the curse. If we trust in Him and pray in His name, we will be saved from this curse. This has consequences now and for eternity.
If we follow Jesus, we will live with a higher purpose, and from the rest of mankind who do not believe in Jesus, we will be smiled at or kindly tolerated at best.
If we follow Jesus we will not die, not that our body is guaranteed to survive this life, but our soul will not die. We will live, even though we have died. Living in His glory, in heaven however that will look. It will be wonderful.
If you choose not to, you can go on exactly as you have been. For the rest of your life, you don't have to feel bad about it.
If you choose not to, your soul will not be saved, you will be lost, separated from God for eternity. This life will not stop with death, but you will not find meaning in it because you were not humble enough to accept Jesus' salvation.
Think about it!
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) How good is this translation?