“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
- Matthew 5:3 (NIV)
Beatitudes and the Disciples:
We Christians, we love caption worthy verses. Meaning a short yet powerful verse that helps us in our walk. Whether it be John 3:16, Jeremiah 29:11, Philippians 4:13, or Joshua 1:9, we go to these for the simple yet effective truths they share. Don’t get me wrong; these are great verses. Yet, when Jesus was laying the foundations of what it means to be His disciples, He did not quote these. Instead, He listed off 9 blessings that are to shape the disciple, shape the church, and shape the world. These short yet kingdom-view altering verses make up what is called The Beatitudes in the Book of Matthew.
I remember trying to teach through Beatitudes to a group of middle schoolers. Now those kids are getting ready to graduate high school, and I realize I am no longer a teenager, sad days. Anyways, when teaching them, I had hardly a clue what these blessings were, to whom they were for, and the impact of the reward. Even with my limited understanding, I knew these were important verses and perhaps vital in understanding the ministries of Jesus. Since that time, I have come to learn a lot more. Over the next several weeks, we will look at each blessing and unpack just what it may mean for us as we share the Good News.
The Beatitudes are not for everybody, but rather Jesus shares these with His disciples on the side of a mountain. Sure, there are crowds present for the Sermon on the Mount, but Matthew 5:1-2 describes that Jesus began to teach the disciples. The crowds were simply amazed (Matt. 7:28). There is an expectation that the disciples, the students of Jesus, were to be:
Poor in spirit
Mourning
Meek
Hungering and Thirsting for Righteousness
Merciful
Pure in Heart
Peacemakers
Persecuted (in two ways)
What then are the trademarks of a true disciple of Christ, and just how are these blessings?
Our Dependence on Independence:
Sometimes it is really hard to know what those mean and just how we can live into them. Some of them are even counter to what is expected of an American. Matthew 5:3 presents one of those counter-cultural characteristics. To be Poor in spirit.
Our issue is that we are overly dependent on our independence. I am not talking politically here, but deep down in our souls, we depend first on our own volition before we would seek help. We go about our work and duties with our own strength under the virtue of taking personal responsibility. There is a DIY mentality ingrained into our psyche that tells you to trust in yourself.
To be fair, taking personal responsibility is a healthy and good trait. To be able to not always depend on others is a good thing. Let us not be content with what is perceived to be best, and then never pursue what is better. Being overly independent will only take you so far, and when you reach that limit, it is not going to be pretty.
Think of a time you were faced with something incredibly hard. It may be a task, some bad news about a loved one, a health crisis… These are things that can become unbearable for an individual, but it's these very things we want to become isolated.
The Poor in spirit:
Here’s the beautiful thing though, we have a God who will never leave you alone. He is omnipresent, meaning always near, within earshot, within your very grasps. He does not want you to be alone; He wants you to be Poor in the spirit. That does not be spiritually weak, or lesser, or some form of spiritual oppression. No.
We serve a God who wishes something more significant for you than to be independent and isolated, to have your strength in yourself. Rather we have a God who enables us to be interdependent. We have a God who allows us to realize how much we need Him, His presence, His all-giving grace, His peace, His Spirit, His Word, His Son. We have a God who gives us the opportunities to be ministers, have callings on our lives, and partake in the redemptive narrative that is the Gospel.
He calls us to be Poor in spirit. Poor as in we NEED Him. Spirit is not something we have on our own, but by God, we may come and trust Him to make us rich. I also like how the New Living Translation puts this verse, “God blesses those who realize their need for Him.” It is a beautiful thing to realize you don’t have to go about life by your own strength but can have a God to trust in a God who enables you, a God who blesses you in ways the human mind cannot understand.
Jesus was telling the disciples what it means to have faith from the get-go. He’s telling them that the heart of it all is to have faith, to trust in God. Before the feeding of the 5,000, before the resurrection of Lazarus, before the calming of the storm, He is asking His disciples, “will you trust me?”
Here is where it becomes even more beautiful. For those who realize how much they need God, how much they need Jesus, they are blessed with the Kingdom of Heaven. That is, they are blessed to now dwell in the very presence of God. This is also not just a future blessing, but it may also be present.
Notice that it says, “for theirs IS the kingdom of heaven.” Perhaps, when we come to realize our need for God, we begin to slowly become aware of how God is at work in the world around us. How He is blessing us, our friends and families, our communities, and even those who don’t even know they were blessed by God. To realize your need for God is about more than just your own satisfaction, but may this need also be about how God works in you as a mission to others. Through that, you become an inheritor of the Kingdom.
It is difficult to express just how much we need God in our lives. It can even be more difficult to express how much He is at work in our lives and how the Kingdom is moving in this world. But what a blessing it is to be aware that we need Him, that we can desire and put trust in God, who fills us and connects us to others.
Interesting, Jesus’s very first lesson point to the disciples was to tell of why they should depend on God. As we look through the book of Acts and think of the early church and its survival, those men and women realized how much they needed God, and that is a beautiful thing.
Final Blessing:
It is amazing the kinds of things Jesus has called us to. They can seem so simple and yet shape our whole experience. We can go from living a life for ourselves and turn to living a life dependent on Him. He has called us and has enabled us to become aware of His Kingdom on earth. What a blessing that is to be able to realize our need for Him and be inheritors of the Kingdom. I wonder what it would look like for you to realize your need for Him this week?
May the Lord of life and redemption be with you in every step, every breath, and every heartbeat. Be messengers of the Good News and Peace friends!
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