The BEatitudes

To start, I am going to look at the Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12.  (Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, Today's New International Version™ TNIV® Copyright © 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society®.  All rights reserved world wide.)


3Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  4Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  5Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.  6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  7Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.  8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.  9Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.  10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.


11Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  12Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.


There must be some connection to being poor in spirit, and being persecuted because of righteousness, as they have the same reward.  But I really don't know what that connection is.  


The one thing that struck me a couple years ago, was how the "American Dream" pretty much requires you to do the opposite of all of this.  You can't be "poor in spirit" because you have to "look out for #1".  Which of course is yourself.  Those who tell you to look out for yourself, will usually allow you to also look out for your immediate family.  However this usually is to avoid mourning.  You also can't be meek.  The American Dream is all about having the nicest stuff.  Why? Not because it makes you a better person or gives you any security, but to show off.  To try and prove by what you own that you are some how better than your neighbors. As far as hungering and thirsting for righteousness, you can't honestly do that either.  It says in Matthew 6:24 "No one can serve two masters.  Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve both God and money."  Yet the American Dream requires you to go after money in order to buy all the trappings you need to show off to your neighbors how much better off you are then they are.  And you do this, usually with out caring what your neighbors are dealing with or how there lives are going.  So we can also forget the next one, being merciful.  It is not possible to pursue the American Dream and still be pure in heart.  This is because of the price paid.  To pursue it causes you to be focused on yourself and your own family only.  You can pay lip service to God, but your focus will be on yourself, and on money.  You might even tithe.  But your tithe won't be out of thanksgiving, but it will be like a bribe. "I'm giving you my 10% God, now give me, give me, give me!".  So you can't be pure in heart.  It is also most difficult to be a peace maker.  This is because you can never allow yourself to be the lesser man.  You can never sacrifice yourself for the other person.  In fact, you may have to go to war just to continue to prove to the world, that you are the better man.  When in fact, you may be proving to God that you are the lesser man.  Now on this last point, I will not say that pursuing the American Dream is with out problems, but the persecutions you face will most likely have been brought on yourself by your own actions.  It is extremely unlikely that you will be persecuted for Christ or Righteousness.


Now I need to make a disclaimer here.  If you are focused on Christ and on building His Kingdom, He will reward you, both in this life and the life to come.  So it is possible, and indeed does happen that those who are righteous will end up with what looks like the American Dream, but they did not pursue it.  They pursued God, and "He added all these things to them also."


So just by the beatitudes it is clear to see the pursuit of the American Dream is contrary to a righteous life.  Now God said many times in His Word that He prefers obedience to sacrifice.  But sometimes obedience requires sacrifice.  In order to pursue God, to hunger and thirst for righteousness, it is necessary to sacrifice those other pursuits we may have.  If we allow Him, God will change our desires, so that we will not want the poison the world has to offer.  However, we must choose to focus on Him, and not on our fleshly desires.


So now that we have a no, lets look at the yes.


Poor in Spirit.  This goes along with "Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought." Basically, we should not be proud.  If we do as we are commanded else where to put others before ourselves, we become poor in spirit, and we inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.  


Mourning.  I used to think this was a strange verse.  A comfort for people who have lost other people.  It is that, but I have realized lately that there is a huge promise here.  We are called to prayer and intersession on behalf of the lost in the world.  If we mourn for them, we will be comforted with their salvations.  If we mourn for the homeless, we will be comforted with the ability to help them.  If we mourn for those lost in addiction, we will be comforted with their recovery.  These are not exact promises, but examples of the idea.  And it is very exciting in thought.  However in practice the mourning may last for years and even decades waiting for the promise.  And the promise may be fulfilled after our physical bodies have expired.


Blessed are the meek.  It is not easy in this world to be meek.  We are constantly put in positions to either defend ourselves or brag about ourselves.  We are seldom vulnerable enough to admit our weaknesses.  Yet that is exactly what this calls us to do.  I was taught growing up, that it was possible to be strong, and to be meek.  I have learned in life, you have to be strong to be meek.  But once you brag about your strength, you have already lost your meekness.  Yet this promise is very nice.  For those who surrender themselves in obedience to Christ, and manage to be humble with His strength, will inherit the earth.  Although because we are supposed to be "in the world but not of it", I have to this day, wondered what it meant for a righteous person to inherit the earth.  


Hungering and thirsting for righteousness.  I love this one for the strength of the promise, and for what it represents.  The only way to be righteous is to be like Christ.  So in essence if we strive with our whole being to be like Christ, He (God the Father) will make us like Christ.  If we only desire righteousness, He will make us righteous!  Amen?


The merciful will be shown mercy.  This promise is what the world refers to as "Karma".  Except the concept of "Karma" leaves each person liable for their own "Karma".  The only way one can get rid of bad "Karma", is to do good deeds.  But with mercy, we can change another's disposition.  That is the awesome thing about mercy.  It is to be given to those who don't deserve it.  And in the bigger picture it is also like love.  We can not love others as much as God first loved us.  Likewise we can not show so much mercy as give away more mercy than has first been given to us.


The pure in heart shall see God.  This one I see as two fold.  First, it is part of what our lives after salvation are all about.  Trying to remove ourselves and be totally surrendered to God.  But also, we can only truly understand the scriptures when we remove our own biases.  The only pure heart, is the one that is like Christs.  Once we are surrendered to God, and let go off all our "a loving god wouldn't" stuff, we can then truly see what God is telling us in the scriptures.  He tells us over and over again not to judge each other.  We therefor should really never judge Him.  I have heard that hate is not the opposite of love, disinterest is.  Sometimes I think Judgement is the opposite of love.  Because not having judgment in our hearts, seems to me to be the first step toward this purity of heart that is required to see God.


Peacemakers are called children of God.  I have been blessed to have often been in the position to create peace.  I have found that when I start with prayer and seek Gods hand in what I do, that He gives me success.  But when I am full of myself and think I can do it, I usually end in failure.  Making matters worse than before I got involved.  But being a piece maker isn't just about handling situations where you are a third party.  It is also in how we respond to the world in our every day dealings.  Being a piece maker is slowing down and giving room to the driver who just rudely cut you off.  It is keeping your cool when your calling your internet service provider because they cut off your service and even they don't know why, but they keep telling you about all the great help they have available on their web site.  Being a piece maker is being a wife who doesn't hold the nasty things her husband said to her against him later after the fight is over. I could go on, but I am sure you get the idea.  I don't know about anyone who may read this, but I know I have a lot of growing to do in this area.


The rest of this is about being persecuted for righteousness.  In America, we really don't even know what real persecution is.  When I was in middle school I was known as "Bible Thumper".  Yet the worst persecution I got was to be spit on.  I wasn't even a social outcast.  I found that people actually wanted me around, because they had this crazy idea that whatever they were doing would be blessed just because I was doing it with them.  Like I was a lucky rabbits foot or something.  Yet you ask most Christians and they will be happy to tell you about all kinds of minor slights they've had to endure "for the sake of Christ".  Most of these will be things they brought on themselves that have little if anything to do with Christ.  And even the ones that are genuine are minor.  In fact, this takes me back to the state of the Christian church in America today.  I have never been excluded from anything because I was a Christian.  However, I been apart of groups who excluded others because the weren't Christian.  I am not proud of this at all, but it is non-the-less true.  What is wrong with that picture?  (rhetorical question)


There is a lot of challenge here, and we are just getting started.


I would love to hear from anyone who reads this.  Whether you agree or disagree, I would like to hear your thoughts.  


Thanks for reading, and God Bless.