Blessed are the poor
in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 5:3 NASB).
Jesus
in the Sermon On the Mount laid out for us what it means to be truly
blessed. The very first virtue mentioned
in the Beatitudes (the beautiful attitudes) is poverty of spirit. Humility is always the door to being truly
blessed.
The
prevailing opinion of the world is that happiness comes from being rich, great,
or honorable in this life. Happiness
stems from external circumstances. In
contrast, blessedness comes from being poor in spirit, which originates from
within. The commentator Matthew Henry
wrote; “The foundation of all other graces is humility. Those who want to build high must begin low.” Being poor in spirit is to realize that God
is great and we are not. He is righteous
and we are sinful and in need of His grace.
And that it is all about Him and not us.
Yes, God does give us spiritual riches, but they are bestowed and not
earned. The Apostle Paul was rich in spiritual
endowment, surpassing most others in gifts and graces, yet he was poor in
spirit. In I Corinthians 15:9 he
says; “For I am the least of the apostles, and not fit to be called an apostle...”. Or in Ephesians 3:8 Paul describes
himself as “the least of all the saints”. This great man of God, the most prolific
writer of New Testament text, viewed himself as the least among the great and
the lowest among the least. In our
spiritual journey, the closer we come to God, the greater He becomes to us, and
the less we become to ourselves. To the
extent that we recognize the bankruptcy of our self-sufficiency and our total dependency
on Him, is the degree to which God can confer upon us all spiritual
blessings. As William Booth, the founder
of the Salvation Army, once said, “The way up is always down.”
Ken
Barnes, the author of “The Chicken Farm and Other Sacred Places” YWAM Publishing
Email: kenbarnes737@gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment