Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit, For Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven
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“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3 (NIV)
Jesus begins the Sermon on the Mount with eight beatitudes. These are the keys for kingdom living that unlock the door of blessing in our lives! Webster defines “beatitude” as “a state of utmost bliss.” I love that! It is an attitude of being; Be-Attitude. The Living Bible paraphrases the word “Blessed” in each beatitude with “Happy”. Who doesn’t want to live a happy life?
Jesus is teaching His followers then and now the essentials for living a happy and fulfilled life, and it is revolutionary because it is so counter-cultural. Each beatitude presents a paradox and would be impossible to achieve apart from the supernatural enablement of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the lives of Christ followers. These attitudes of being run contrary to the way we would naturally think or live our lives. Yet, Jesus promises that with each step we take, we are on the path of kingdom living even in a fallen world! I want to challenge you to walk with me on this path over the next couple of weeks as we explore each one of these beatitudes together.
Let’s look at the first step today – “Blessed (happy) are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3 (NIV) I love the way the Message paraphrases this beatitude. It helps me understand what it means to be poor in spirit and what the kingdom of heaven is all about. It says, "You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and His rule.”
Are you at the end of your rope? Maybe you feel that way right now. You’re at your wit’s end. You don’t know what to do. You’ve tried everything to save your marriage, salvage your career or rescue your children but nothing has worked. You’ve been knocked down by circumstances beyond your control and you feel like you can’t even get up. You’re tired, exhausted from so many failed efforts. Please hear me as I say to you today, “You’re really in a good spot. You just may not recognize it because the pain hurts so much.” Jesus is saying to His followers, “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope.” How is that? Because you’re finally ready to turn to God for the help that only He can give. You cannot save yourself, much less anyone else! The first step to kingdom living begins with the admission that I am poor. I am spiritually bankrupt and cannot save myself. God is saying, “You can’t do it. I never said you could. But I can, and always said I would!” The kingdom of heaven is all about the rule and reign of Jesus, not us. That’s why the beatitude continues, “… with less of you there is more of God and His rule.”
Here’s the way Oswald Chambers puts it in his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest. I think he describes the meaning of this first step the best of all when he writes,
“The teaching of the Sermon on the Mount produces despair in the natural man – the very thing Jesus means to do. As long as we have a self-righteous, conceited notion that we can carry out our Lord’s teaching, God will allow us to go on until we break our ignorance over some obstacle, then we are willing to come to Him as paupers and receive from Him. ‘Blessed are the paupers in spirit,’ that is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The bedrock in Jesus Christ’s kingdom is poverty, not possession; not decisions for Jesus Christ, but a sense of absolute futility – I cannot begin to do it. Then Jesus says – Blessed are you! That is the entrance, and it does take us a long while to believe we are poor! The knowledge of our own poverty brings us to the moral frontier where Jesus Christ works.”
Becoming a Christ follower is a decision followed by a process of learning to be the Christian we have become. Each of those who followed Jesus up the mount to hear Him teach was committed to that path of learning to be a Kingdom-minded, Kingdom-living Christian. It is a transformational path that will change you from the inside out and lead you to a blessed life!