I just read about a Surrey man who waited a month to claim his massive $31.7 million dollar Lotto 6/49 prize.
This past Tuesday, Harry Black picked up two cheques – each for just over $15.8 million dollars. Together they totalled his $31.7 million dollar windfall.
Why two cheques? This is due to the fact that four winning tickets were sold in April’s $63 million jackpot.
Two were quickly claimed by people from Vancouver and Alberta.
But Mr. Black not only bought the remaining two in a double-down strategy, he waited a month to collect his prize due to his “even-keeled demeanour.”
Apparently, Mr. Black, 66, had been playing the same lotto numbers for 35 years. He’s a film industry worker who’s going to do something that he’s never done before – go on vacation.
Can you imagine winning the lottery?
For many of us, this is the ultimate dream.
But the problem is the odds are great.
B.C. Lottery Corporation vice-president Kevin Gass said of Mr. Black: “Scientifically speaking, the odds of him wining half of the biggest jackpot in Canada are about a gazillion to one.”
We probably won’t ever win the lotto, but we can ‘win’ a greater prize – the spiritual lotto.
The apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 1:3 [NLT]: “All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.”
Part of what it means to be a Christian is that God has blessed you.
And the idea is that if you are united with Christ, you have been blessed with every spiritual blessing possible.
Most people tend to take this exclusively in materialistic terms: “Oh so I’ll be happy; I’ll be rich; I’ll be healthy; I’ll be tall; I’ll be slender and attractive.”
But that’s not the case. The blessings aren’t necessarily material and the blessings aren’t necessarily visible and the blessings aren’t necessarily in this life; 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, 1,000,000 years from now, will it matter if we’ve won the lotto?
I don’t think so.
But those who are in Christ have been blessed with every spiritual blessing.
The idea is that Jesus gives us every spiritual blessing possible.
And 100 years from now, 1,000 years from now, 1,000,000 years from now, it will matter.
It’s like winning the biggest and best lottery ever.
– by Brad Warner, associate pastor at Burnett Fellowship.