POOR IN SPIRIT

Jesus had just chosen his first disciples and was drawing massive crowds as he traveled throughout Galilee teaching, proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, healing every disease and every affliction among the people.   He retreated to a mountain, sat down as his disciples gathered around him and he began providing foundational tenets to them.  One of the first was from Matthew 5:3(ESV) “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  One wonders why Jesus would start out with this particular beatitude as a foundation for what his disciples should aspire to be like.  Could it be that he considers a humble recognition of spiritual neediness and dependence on God, rather than self-sufficiency, as being fundamental to becoming more like him?    

God’s timing, as always, is perfect.  When God Incarnate walked the earth in human form, there was a deep need for hope, for repentance, and for redemption through a direct relationship with God.  Jesus provided the Way and many people (but not all) followed him.  That same need lives in our world today and one day soon, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord.  We find ourselves living today between those two periods of time.  While we are in these temporary jars of clay, we must fulfill the commands in 1 Timothy  6:18-19 by being rich in good deeds, being generous and willing to share, so that we can take hold of the life that is truly life.  The implication of that Scripture is that there is a life that is not truly life but rather a counterfeit of what God intended, a life that places the unsurrendered self at the center of everything.  The discipline of reading, meditating and acting on Scripture provides a clear perception of ourselves, including a recognition of the miracles and the messes that we are plus a cure for every trial and trouble. That discipline directs us toward what is truly the life we always have wanted (but perhaps didn’t recognize at times), one where we are like Christ, the poor in spirit