Fu - the most auspicious word among the Chinese!

The Fu character or symbol will decorate many homes, businesses, and cities as the Chinese New Year approaches. All Chinese know the character stands for blessedness, happiness, riches, and success. But most Chinese are not aware of the wonderful message the character itself teaches about the source of true blessing, riches, and success.

All men everywhere seek to be happy, because they have known true happiness in his distant past. However, his memory of his past has become so darkened that all his pursuits to recover that lost happiness end in unfulfilled dreams and despair. But there is yet hope for him. Read on, and may God bless you with this true blessedness.

'Blessed' -
The word comprised of four characters is an iconographic record of the original blessedness of man preserved beautifully in the Chinese character. Blessedness is one man ( ) in the garden/field ( ) with the Divine. Adam, the father and representative head of the human race, was this man! God created him in His own image and appointed him the keeper of the Garden of Eden. He had fellowship with God his Creator, thus glorifying and enjoying Him. This was the true happiness which man had at the beginning.

Blessedness Lost
Alas! That blessedness was lost when Adam chose to disobey the plain command of God to abstain from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam became a rebel. The sweet communion he enjoyed with God was replaced with enmity. He was expelled from the Garden of Eden. In Adam's rebellion against God his Creator, the human race lost the true blessedness

Condemned!
God is holy and does not tolerate sin. Adam was warned that in the day he sinned, he would surely die. God is righteous, and He must punish sin. And the penalty of sin is death. Therefore, before the all-seeing God, we sinners are condemned! This condemnation is physical and spiritual death. After death on earth, we will suffer in the fires of hell eternally. We will be cut off from the fountain of true blessedness - God Himself.

The only way to escape this just condemnation is to find a substitute to meet the holiness and justice of God. God's holiness requires that His law be kept perfectly. God's justice requires that all who sin must be punished in eternal hell. However, all sinners are disqualified to be a substitute, for all have sinned. A sinless substitute must be found to bear the condemnation we deserve, so that we may be spared.

Blessedness Regained
God, knowing our utter inability to meet His requirements, sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to be our substitute. He was born of a virgin named Mary. He lived a sinless life that fulfilled every demand of righteousness required by God's holiness. He then willingly laid down His life for sinners to bear the condemnation and death that they deserve. Jesus Christ not only secured righteousness for His people, He also took away their condemnation of death by His sacrificial death on their behalf. On the basis of this redemptive work of Jesus Christ, God gives eternal life to His chosen people.

Blessedness Announced
The good news is that whoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ has eternal life. Jesus Christ died that eternal life might be given to His people. Whoever believes has eternal life in him - he has been justified and regenerated and adopted by God through the finished work of Jesus Christ. His condemnation has been removed, and he has been declared righteous before God.

Men must repent and believe upon the Lord Jesus Christ, their Saviour. This way, they will experience the true blessedness that was lost by Adam, but was regained by Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of the eternal God.

Jesus said, "Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."