Blessed To Be A Blessing Lesson One
When Ms. Sabrina asked me to substitute teach for her this month, I was honored and excited, but honestly had no real idea what the Lord would have me teach. I spent time in prayer and was looking through ladies devotionals and found this wonderful little book, “Blessing From Above , A Deeper Look at the Beatitudes”, by Katherine Hart. As I read through these simple devotions, I knew in my spirit this was the direction the Lord was taking me personally and y’all as well.
This book will be the basic foundation as we look at exactly what the Lord Jesus was teaching his disciples in this first part of his great Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus told his disciples in John 14:12. "Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.
This is an important verse in my life, the Lord highlighted it to me several years ago in my private devotion and it is something I strive for daily.
We each have been called by the Father to do specific things on this earth. Not all of us are called into the 5 fold ministry but we each have a purpose and God has a plan for us. Everything we do should glorify God , lift up Jesus and draw all men unto Him. God deals with me about this on a daily basis.
This is one thing all of us have been called to do, share Christ in some way in our lives, actively or passively. I have heard it said that a famous Saint, said something along these lines, “show Christ in all you do, and use words if necessary.”
The Lord is constantly dealing with me on a daily basis, how I live my life, walk my walk and display Him, His power and love to a hurting world. (I don’t always succeed but each day is a step in the right direction.)
We cannot do the works that Jesus did, if we do not know what He did for us, what He has given us and how He expects us to live on a daily basis.
Interestingly, the Sermon on the Mount is just what this is. It is Jesus teaching his disciples how to take the laws etc of the Old Covenant and apply them to the new Covenant and the new way of life. He was telling them how to live their daily Christian life. For this to have any meaning, the attitude of the heart has to be addressed first and this is just what Jesus did with the first twelve verses of chapter 5 of Matthew.
First a little history.
The Gospel of Matthew serves three purposes, it is written to the Jews from a Jewish perspective, to prove to Jewish readers Jesus is the promised Messiah and King, proves His legitimate authority by highlighting his wise teaching and righteous life and the third and one we will concentrate on is outlining the characteristics of the kingdom of God both for Israel and the church.
Jesus refers to himself several times as the “Son of Man.” I believe he did this to show us how a man should conduct himself in the now kingdom of God. Yes it has other implications, but I want us to concentrate on Jesus’ humanity. He walked on this earth as a man to show us how to live a kingdom life on earth, doing what he did only greater! He had to do this as a “spirit filled man.” Not a God.
So let’s look at out scripture for tonight, I do not know how many we will do a night as we only have a month, but tonight I want to concentrate on the first “Beatitude”.
Matthew 5: 1. And seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. 2. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: 3. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Let me ask you a few questions. These are questions we will be asking ourselves throughout this study.
- How does this teaching differ from what the World teaches today?
- How does this teaching affect me, my life, my attitude?
- What should this teaching look like in my life or be displayed in my life?
- Do I have a “world church” or “Pharisee” type faith, displayed by pride, selfishness, worldliness , sin or do I have a deeply rooted Biblical faith?
I know for me the answer to these questions is a continual growth that never stops in my life until I see Him face to face.
Have you ever really wondered what “poor in spirit meant”?
I know I never really thought about it, I can remember memorizing these verses as a young Southern Baptist in GA’s . I just learned the verses not really what they meant.
For me, truly learning what “poor in spirit meant” was eye opening.
But first let’s look at the word “blessed”.
Have you ever really wondered what “poor in spirit meant”?
. People ask us how we are and we automatically say “blessed.” But what does that mean, does it mean God has given us stuff, helped us out of a bad situation, helped us financially. What does it mean.
The Amplified Bible interestingly translates it a little differently in each verse.
In this verse it is translated as “happy, to be envied and spiritually prosperous-with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s salvation, regardless of their outward conditions”.
So blessed means happy no matter what? Well kinda.
It means to experience hope and joy independent from our circumstances. It means we posses the favor of God. To be blessed is to be loved-or cherished. Blessings always stem from love, God’s love. It can come from now where else.
The wonderful thing is , all these blessings become a part of us, once we meet the conditions given in the first part of the verse. They are freely given and cost us nothing but our trust. It doesn’t sound too bad, right, but it is hard.
As we look at these verses, we must always look inward, into our own heart. Not at someone else, the church as a whole or anything else, it is all about what is going on in your heart, my heart and nothing else.
This can be very hard and of course Jesus steps right up and deals with the hardest one of all. “Poor in Spirit.”
What is he talking about – Pride. Yes Pride. The World today sees no need for salvation. Satan’s fall was caused by what – pride. Pride is the result of sin and has to be dealt with, with vigor and strength. You cannot be “wishy-washy” about dying to self, it is an all or nothing event, but in many of us it takes time.
To be truly “poor in spirit” we have to completely let go of all of our conceptions of ourselves and realize our need for a savior. For some of us that was easier than others.
Some of us have realized we needed Jesus, forgiveness, redemption and we have partially yielded ourselves to His call. But there is always a part of us that we don’t want to let go. We hold on to, some of us not even realizing it.
You see, when you really, really realize your sinfulness, it make you poor in spirit. It really humbles you and makes you want to cry out to Jesus for forgiveness.
If we cannot completely do this, completely die to ourselves then we will not benefit from the next blessings listed. True blessings come form truly knowing who Jesus is and what He did for us.
Let me interject something here. Too many times we use the term God when we should be using Jesus. God sent his only son, but Jesus lived and died for me, he went to hell for me , he rose so that I can live again. He defeated the devil for me and we need to keep that before a hurting world, not the generic God. Yes all this was planned and ordained by God but we cannot substitute the generic word God and expect to save the lost from hell. We must preach and teach Christ and Him crucified, nothing else is the truth.
So for me, this has become a major truth in my life. Jesus Christ actually died for me, Tinsley Baker. He thought of me when He was on the cross, He knew my name. He called me before the foundation of the World. Nothing else matters.
I have definitely reached a point in my life , when I can say, I have become “poor in spirit”. I know what I was and what it took to redeem me and I am eternally grateful.
Yes there are time, when I forget and let my pride and willfulness get in the way.
I think and act before I pray. I think I can handle my situations, reacting instead of prayerfully acting. And yes, there will be more time when that will happen, but I can say that each day as I remember to be “poor in spirit” , these occurrences are less frequent. And if not, then I try to recognize them and when I do, I pray and repent.
Being “poor in spirit” is a continual state of being. No, it does not mean you have to go around in sackcloth and ashes, but you have to put your prideful self down all the time, why because being “poor in spirit” has a promise. We need to remember who and what we were, a sinful mess with no hope or life. Now, once we accepted Jesus we are the righteousness of God, we are blessed with eternal life, new birth, we belong to God, we are His child, we are part of the body of Christ.
We can do the works Jesus did and greater. Why? Because we are blessed!
So let’s look at the remainder of the verse:
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
We have the joy of knowing Jesus as Lord, we have the peace of knowing we will live forever with Him. We have the joy and peace of a life dedicated to serving him.
The one thing I want you to grasp is you are “kingdom living now.” The minute you accepted Jesus as Lord, you stepped into eternity.
God told the Israelites to go in and possess the Land.
Deuteronomy 1 ;5. On this side of the Jordan in the land of Moab, Moses began to explain this law, saying, 6. "The Lord our God spoke to us in Horeb, saying: `You have dwelt long enough at this mountain. 7. `Turn and take your journey, and go to the mountains of the Amorites, to all the neighboring places in the plain, in the mountains and in the lowland, in the South and on the seacoast, to the land of the Canaanites and to Lebanon, as far as the great river, the River Euphrates.
- `See, I have set the land before you; go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to your fathers to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to give to them and their descendants after them.':
He was figuratively speaking about their promised land, but also it is a spiritual analogy of our daily walk. We have to posses our land. We are blessed with the kingdom of heaven because we are poor in spirit, but we have to possess it and walk in it daily. It is an act of faith on our part every day, there are easy places, dark places, narrow places, wide places, mountains, valleys, storms and calm weather.
But it is ours to walk in, not the enemy’s. We are to possess it, not the devil.
Let me leave you with this verse, to help you start to walk in your possession today.
Ephesians 6: 10. Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might.
This has become my daily motto and yes even battle cry.
“I am strong in the Lord and the power of his might .”
Let me add, “and I have inherited the kingdom of heaven and I live in it now.”
Amen!