Blessings in Poverty
Matthew 5:3 Great blessings belong to those who know they are spiritually in need. God's kingdom belongs to them.
I don’t think there’s a single person on this planet who doesn’t want to be … “blessed” somehow. Do you want to be blessed? Sure you do. We all do. The problem is though, that all too often, we go looking for blessings in all the wrong places.
Come on, if you could ask God for a special blessing, today, right now, something that would completely delight your heart, what would it be? Perhaps the healing of a relationship, perhaps the healing of a loved one?
Or maybe some bauble or trinket that the world tells you is important: a handbag, a pair of shoes, a new car, just a bit more money to pay the bills, a holiday.
In His famous sermon on the mount, where Jesus rattles off a whole list of blessings, what’s the very first one He mentions? Do you remember?
Great blessings belong to those who know they are spiritually in need. God’s kingdom belongs to them. (Matthew 5:3)
Or, as you may remember it:
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
I mean come on, that’s … counterintuitive … to say the least. Poor in spirit, in great spiritual need – what does that actually mean?
Well for me, it meant coming to grips with reality. I spent years of my life full of confidence and bravado – at least, on the outside. But inside, it was a different matter. Inside there was an emptiness, a poverty that I didn’t dare even to think about, let alone speak it out loud. No one would ever have guessed. But … it was definitely there.
The blessing came when I admitted it, to myself and to God. God’s abundant blessing began to flow in my life when finally, I admitted to myself and to Him that doing it my way, going it alone, simply wasn’t working. Spiritual poverty is such a good description of that.
What about you? Where are you at? Greatly blessed in a deep, intimate, powerful, dynamic relationship with Jesus? Or … is something missing? Is something not quite right? Is there a spiritual poverty deep down, eating away at your soul? So deep that you don’t even want to think about it?
Blessing, real blessing, God’s blessing, turns up in some strange places.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
That’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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