Blessed Are The Poor In Spirit

"Unless your righteousness surpasses the Pharisees and the teachers of the Law, you will be no means enter the kingdom of heaven."  

Matthew 5:17-20

Perhaps one of the most potent promises in the Bible is found in Matthew 5:3, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God.”  What Christ was teaching is that a condition to be blessed by God is to recognize our impoverished condition without Him.

If we truly accept our emptiness and brokenness without Jesus, then we will understand our need for Him.  The opposite of this is self righteousness and pride, which looks to its own good works and religion, instead of Jesus.  Our true condition without God is a poverty of spirit.  But when we receive Him as Savior, we go from being poor in spirit to not only receiving a promise of eternal life in the kingdom of heaven, but also we receive a blessing from God that will lead to our joy and fulfillment.

In Matthew 5:6, Jesus put it another way, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.”  Again, the promise of satisfaction from Jesus comes when we recognize how truly hungry and thirsty we are without Him.  Admitting our poverty becomes the gateway to spiritual health.  A spiritual hunger and thirst will lead us to Jesus where we find God’s favor.

In Mark 1:40-45, we find a leper who goes to Jesus and begs and kneels before Him for healing.  He understood his absolute bankrupt condition.  When Jesus saw his humility, the text tells us He was moved with pity, stretched out his hand and healed him.   We can learn something from this broken leper.   If we also understand our broken condition because of sin, Jesus is willing to clean us, forgive us, and give us new life.  That is what happened to this leper, which was no doubt the most glorious day of his life.

But the account in Mark 1 takes a sinister turn after Jesus heals the man.  Jesus gave the man a command in Mark 1:44, which he failed to obey, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a proof to them”…  the man “went out and began to talk freely about it.”

Again we find application for our own lives.   Though this man’s life was radically  transformed in Jesus, he struggled to obey.   Here we see it is possible to receive Christ’s forgiveness and cleansing power, yet still struggle with obedience.   But here is the good news, we can discover the joy of obeying Him through the God’s Holy Spirit.  It is the Holy Spirit that will give us the power to walk victoriously.

The Apostle Paul in Colossians 2:6-7 invites us this way, “as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.”   While it is glorious to be saved and “healed” by Jesus, only when we abide in His commands do the blessings flow from walking obediently after Him!