God Loves… Himself

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)

Last week we looked at the spiritual activities that are at the least tightly linked with mourning. For example, prayer and fasting are things that cannot be biblically done without some degree of mourning. This week we want to look at how joy comes with mourning which is to say with the text that those who mourn are blessed because they shall be comforted. We will then have a short look at hindrances and helps to true mourning.

Joy comes with mourning because true mourning is always moved by love for God and His glory. Wherever there is love for God we know that is the work of the Spirit because true love is the fruit of the Spirit. Another aspect of the fruit of the Spirit is joy. Joy is not a separate fruit of the Spirit, but is part of the fruit (singular) of the Spirit. Joy is an essential element of the love worked in the heart by the Spirit. This is seen in Galatians 5:22 where the fruit (singular) of the Spirit has nine elements to it.

The text tells us that those who mourn shall be comforted. In an earlier newsletter we looked at the promises in the Beatitudes and concluded that the promises will be fulfilled now and in eternity. So people are blessed now if they have true spiritual mourning because they are blessed now and can look forward to the fullness of the comfort in eternity. We see this in several texts from Scripture:

Isaiah 51:12: “I, even I, am He who comforts you. Who are you that you are afraid of man who dies And of the son of man who is made like grass, 61:2: “To proclaim the favorable year of the LORD And the day of vengeance of our God; To comfort all who mourn.” 66:10: “Be joyful with Jerusalem and rejoice for her, all you who love her; Be exceedingly glad with her, all you who mourn over her.”

Luke 16:25: “But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your life you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus bad things; but now he is being comforted here, and you are in agony.'”

Revelation 21:4: “and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.”

2 Corinthians 1:4: “who comforts us in all our affliction so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. 6 But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer; 7 and our hope for you is firmly grounded, knowing that as you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are sharers of our comfort.”

For the believer that mourns for the name of God and His glory in the world, there is the comfort of God Himself for and with that believer. The heart that loves God enough to mourn when His name is abused in the world has God Himself in the heart and so is comforted by Him. We see the promise from Revelation 21:4 that in eternity God will wipe away every tear from the eye and all mourning will be done away. That is a promise with great comfort for all those that mourn for biblical things. But II Corinthians 1:4-7 has promises of comfort right now as well. It is that comfort which brings joy in the midst of mourning.

In verse 4 we see that it is God who comforts His people so that they will be able to comfort others who are going through the same thing. In this context the sufferings are for afflictions, but mourning is a type of inner affliction. Believers are afflicted with many things both inwardly and outwardly in the cause of Christ, but He comforts them. He brings afflictions to them to teach them that He is better than all the world has to offer. When people learn to suffer with the joy that Christ gives they have learned that His lovingkindness is better than life (Psa 63:3). When people learn that mourning for true spiritual things is better than all the pleasures of the world, they have learned what it means to be comforted by God. God comforts with the joy and pleasure of His presence. We must learn that if we mourn out of love for God and His name and glory in this world it is actually God Himself who comes and comforts that heart with Himself. In sharing that comfort with others we are comforted even more with Him.
“But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, 9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, 10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:7-10).

In the text just above we see that Paul suffered a lot in order to know Christ. He suffered the loss of his position in life and probably all of his possessions. He dropped from being a highly esteemed person in the religious realm to being despised by the political and religious people in that land. However, he counted all of those losses as gain in order to know Christ. All of the esteem and things of the world he considered as rubbish (dung) in order to gain Christ. He wanted to know Christ and even the fellowship of His sufferings. In these verses we see the heart of Paul. The whole world was dung to him if he could but know Christ. Paul loved Christ and wanted Christ more than anything and everything. Paul was willing to die in order to proclaim the Gospel that he loved so much. What did he mourn over? For many walk, of whom I often told you, and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ” (Phil 3:18). A heart that was filled with such love for Christ was also a heart that mourned for how people treated Christ, but Paul also taught us to be comforted by God (II Cor 1:4-7). That comfort given by God brings joy.

The hindrances to mourning are focused on a few things. We do not mourn because we do not love God and our neighbors enough. We do not mourn because we have a defective view of sin and we do not mourn because we restrain our affections. We don’t mourn for the glory and kingdom of God because our hearts are not set on those things as of primary importance and love. We mourn when things that hurt our financial or physical well-being come across our path, but to mourn for that and not for His glory shows us where our true love really is. We mourn when other people have a physical illness or distress of some sort in this world, but we don’t mourn when we see them fall into sin which is really the greatest harm that can befall another person. If we had true spiritual eyes we would have joy in the trials of others if we saw God working spiritual good in them. We would also mourn over their sin when it involved greed and worldliness even when they were growing wealthy. That would mean that we make a decision concerning their true well-being based on spiritual issues. We should mourn over people that attend “churches” where their sin is not pointed out and God is not truly exalted in Christ regardless of the size and affluence of the “church” they attend.

While it may sound strange, we need to look at helps to mourning or at least those things that are conducive to a heart that loves enough to mourn. The first thing is that we must pray and seek hearts from God for hearts that love His glory and renown above all things. We will not mourn as we should until we love God’s glory and renown in the world more than our own comfort and worldly interests. The second thing is to pray that God would give us a greater love for our neighbors. If we truly loved our neighbors, we would mourn for their spiritual condition. The third thing is to pray that God would give us a growing love for the truth of the cross and grace of Christ. A heart that loves Christ and the cross cannot love sin which required His sufferings on the cross. The fourth thing that we must do is to learn the true nature of sin as it is enmity against God. People mourn when nations go to war and they mourn over criminal acts, but it is rare indeed to see people that mourn because of sin which is an act of hostility and hatred against God. Why don’t they? Because they don’t see sin as it really is and perhaps don’t love God.

The people within each church must strive to understand things in a spiritual way. All the academic knowledge in the world will not bring true spiritual understanding. Spiritual understanding is what is needed to understand how and why mourning for the proper things from a heart that loves God is actually conducive to true joy. One problem with speaking of the hindrances and helps to mourning is that both focus on the nature of true love and the nature of true love has been lost in our modern day for the most part. A man-centered way of thinking of love will never give a true understanding of mourning and the spiritual necessity for it. A God-centered view of love will do so. Meditate on the following verses and ask how it could be that Christ had a perfect love and joy in the Father. Though man may never understand this completely, meditating on that question will give some insight into the matter (II Tim 2:7). Isaiah 53:3; Matthew 26:37-38; Luke 19:41: John 11:35; Hebrews 5:7.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)

We have been looking at the happiness and joy of those who mourn. While the world would do virtually anything (but deny self) to keep people from mourning, it is actually the teaching of Christ that a biblical mourning is conducive to true joy and happiness. This is so backwards to the world that it will not listen to teaching like this. However, it is in perfect harmony with the character of God and of Christ as He lived on earth. We might also remember the book of Ecclesiastes on this as well: “The mind of the wise is in the house of mourning, while the mind of fools is in the house of pleasure” (7:4).

This week we will look at spiritual activities that the Bible links with mourning. We could also say that these activities cannot be done at times and in certain important ways without mourning. The Bible links prayer, repentance, fasting, seeking God, and reflecting or meditating on sin with mourning. Now try to imagine a believer being happy apart from prayer and seeking God. It is simply impossible, yet mourning is necessary for those activities at important times in the life of the believer. There are times that prayer without mourning is simply words thrown above our heads. There are times that if we are fasting without mourning we are simply going hungry. There are times when we say we are seeking God without true mourning, we are simply seeking God for selfish purposes.

Zechariah 12:10 sets out how mourning is linked with prayer: “I will pour out on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they will weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn.” Notice that the Spirit of grace and supplication (form of prayer) is given so that (the purpose of it) they will mourn and weep bitterly. Nehemiah 1:4 tells us how mourning and praying with fasting go together: “When I heard these words, I sat down and wept and mourned for days; and I was fasting and praying before the God of heaven.” If the love of God and His glory are at the center of what we do, there will be times when we weep and mourn while we fast and pray. The state of the Church is something that the church needs to turn from its programs and begin to ask God for hearts that mourn and weep for the Church. Nehemiah was weeping and mourning over the state of the walls at Jerusalem, so surely we should weep and mourn over the state of the Church today.

Sorrow is a type of mourning and is linked with true repentance. “I now rejoice, not that you were made sorrowful, but that you were made sorrowful to the point of repentance; for you were made sorrowful according to the will of God, so that you might not suffer loss in anything through us. 10 For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death” (II Corinthians 7:9-10). A true sorrow that is moved by love leads to true repentance, but a false type of sorrow (selfish) leads to a repentance that is repented of. It takes a true sorrow or mourning to repent from the heart.

We have seen how fasting is linked with mourning. “So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes” (Daniel 9:3). “In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a message was revealed to Daniel, who was named Belteshazzar; and the message was true and one of great conflict, but he understood the message and had an understanding of the vision. 2 In those days, I, Daniel, had been mourning for three entire weeks. 3 I did not eat any tasty food, nor did meat or wine enter my mouth, nor did I use any ointment at all until the entire three weeks were completed” (Dan 10:1-3). In these verses we see that mourning, fasting, and seeking God are linked together. Fasting is not some sort of spiritual activity that one does because it makes one spiritual, but because it is a biblically prescribed way of seeking God when done from the heart. Fasting is not done in order to get something from God; it is done in order to seek God Himself.

We must be very careful at this point or we will become like the Pharisees who hired mourners and went around mourning when they fasted in order to obtain attention. A true mourning has the proper heart which is a heart that mourns because of the dishonor done to God and because the heart seeks God and His glory above all things. We can see how fasting can become what is known as a spiritual discipline and so people discipline themselves to fast. However, that is a worthless activity if it is not done out of a mourning heart that is seeking for God Himself. When people fast in an effort to become more spiritual and to wrest things from God, they are turning it into a work. True fasting must be joined with true mourning which arises from a true love for God and His glory.

I think, then, that it should be clear where mourning fits in with fasting and seeking God. It is a mourning heart that has sorrow for what it or others have done in dishonoring God or perhaps mourns and has sorrow for the state of the Church. It is the mourning heart that is needed in order to fast in a way where fasting is really a way of seeking God. The mourning heart mourns because its Beloved is not fully present and is not being honored and glorified as it should be. Without the heart that loves so much that it mourns, fasting is done for selfish purposes and seeking God is really seeking God for selfish purposes. Mourning is utterly necessary for these things to be truly done.

“Yet even now,” declares the LORD, “Return to Me with all your heart, And with fasting, weeping and mourning” (Joel 2:12). Here the Lord teaches us how to return to Himself. He tells us to return to Him with all of our heart. Okay, but that is easy to say and impossible to do apart from His grace. He tells us that we return to Him with “fasting, weeping, and mourning.” There is the prescription for the modern Church as well, but how opposite that is with the positive thinking, self-esteem, and prosperity teaching. It is even more at odds with the crowds that teach that men are little gods and that we influence reality by our positive words. God Himself teaches us to return to Himself with fasting and mourning. There is no easy way to do this; it must be grace in the heart that works these things in the heart. We cannot work up true mourning; it must come from a heart of love for God.

But, one might say, that is the Old Testament and is not the positive message of the New Testament. Fine, but listen to James: “Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you” (4:8-10). Again the subject matter is drawing near to God. That is done by cleansing the hands and purifying the heart. How is that done? By being miserable, mourning, weeping, letting your laughter be turned into mourning, and by humbling self in the presence of the Lord. Indeed we are to have joy in the Lord, but this verse needs to be heard as well. It is not just a worked up joy, or just any joy, but it is a joy in the Lord. True joy in the Lord comes when He exalts the person and that will only happen when it is preceded by mourning and weeping.

We need to learn from Ezra how we are to behave toward God for our own sin and the sins of others. Ezra 10:1 Now while Ezra was praying and making confession, weeping and prostrating himself before the house of God, a very large assembly, men, women and children, gathered to him from Israel; for the people wept bitterly. 2 Shecaniah the son of Jehiel, one of the sons of Elam, said to Ezra, “We have been unfaithful to our God and have married foreign women from the peoples of the land; yet now there is hope for Israel in spite of this.
6 Then Ezra rose from before the house of God and went into the chamber of Jehohanan the son of Eliashib. Although he went there, he did not eat bread nor drink water, for he was mourning over the unfaithfulness of the exiles” (Ezra 10:1-2, 6). In this passage we see that Ezra was praying and in that prayer he confessed sin. While making that confession he was weeping and the people wept bitterly. In other words, they were mourning for sin. In verse 6 we see that he was mourning for the sin of other people. Imagine that he was appalled and mourning for the sin of others! Would it be to God that people would have a heart like that in our day. Oh for a people that would mourn for their own sins, the sins of others, the sins of the nation, and especially the sins of the Church.

Without drawing this out any longer, surely it is obvious that mourning is important to major and important aspects of the Christian life and Church. Mourning is at the heart of certain types of prayer, of fasting, of repentance, of seeking God, and of how we deal with our sin and the sins of others. On the other hand, as I have tried to show in previous weeks, without mourning that is no true joy. Can we imagine that a person would have joy as a Christian if s/he did not pray, repent, or seek God? Yet can we imagine a person that did not have true joy that had the spirit of true prayer, repentance, and of seeking God? I think the Bible leaves us with an uncomfortable tension. We must seek to be a true mourner in order to have true blessedness and joy. If we seek the joy apart from a heart that truly mourns, we will not have true joy. That is backwards according to the world, and yet it is the way that God works in the hearts of those that He gives the joy of knowing Him. It is also the way that He works in hearts when He is preparing those hearts for revival. Revival will not visit our nation and church until we have hearts that love God enough to mourn over sin which is against Him and His glory.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)

We have been looking at mourning and how it is that those who mourn are blessed. You may think that this is a terrible subject to speak of since we should be telling people how to have joy in God. However, if Jesus is right and not those that say things like that, in dealing with the subject of mourning we are moving people toward a true and biblical joy. After all, the text tells us with no real degree of ambiguity that those who mourn are the ones that are blessed (happy, inner joy). Then the text tells us the main reason for that and it is this: “for they shall be comforted.” Another way to put that would be that only those who mourn will be comforted and therefore blessed or truly happy. In order to pursue true joy, therefore, we must teach people about true mourning.

The world pursues joy and happiness in all manner of activities and ways. It hates any sort of sadness and thinks sadness is a form of depression. This means that when the world hears of a person being sad or mourning it thinks that people are depressed. So the world rushes to cheer that person up with all sorts of positive thinking and light activities. In doing that, however, it just might be crushing any true joy that a person may have. Scripture speaks of people mourning and being broken over their sin. This is a natural result of a person coming to the stark realization of his or her poverty of spirit. The drive to make everyone outwardly light and happy in and out of the church has had terrible results in the spiritual realm of people. People must learn to truly mourn over their own sin and the glory of God or they will not have true joy.

Our text tells us that those who mourn will be comforted. So we must learn to mourn in such a way that it is only God and His balm that is applied to the soul that will comfort us. What keeps us from mourning in a biblical way? The world sees this as ridiculous (happy are those who mourn) and thinks mourning should be avoided at all cost. In fact, it is setup to avoid pain and mourning. For example, the entertainment industry is thriving in its efforts to help us keep our minds off of mourning and hell. To the degree, then, that the church has bought into the entertainment model is to the same degree that the church is opposed to true mourning and true joy. This text demonstrates that there is a real problem in the Church because it has been caught up with entertainment just like the world except that it is termed “Christian.”

The world is seemingly nothing but a variety of entertainment these days. We have movies, music, television, computers, video games, bars, novels, and the list goes on and on. The world seems set up to keep people entertained so that they will not have to think of the looming danger and reality of eternity. If once a person begins to think of eternity and others see him or her as depressed, the entertainment industry is thrust at that person in an effort to get him or her out of depression. However, what that does is bring many people out of a serious thinking about eternity and reality and gives them the opiate of entertainment which is a great form of delusion. While it has been said that religion is the opiate of the masses, the truth of the matter is that entertainment in our day has become that which dulls the mind and the soul to eternal things and reality. It is the opiate of the masses.

But is the Church any better? Sure, we may say, it is far better. But to what degree is it better? If our services are set up to keep people happy and not bored, what are we saying? If we desire quality music and entertaining preaching, though we would use different words, aren’t we going down that same path and in reality the worldly model of entertainment has entered in? If we lighten up the preaching, though we say we are making it more relevant, aren’t we really being more entertaining? If the preaching is filled with stories and jokes, then we are focused on entertainment. If our children programs and youth programs are meant to entertain or be funny and light over all, can we say that the entertainment model has not been brought into the Church?

For a church to desire true happiness in the members it must seek to make them mourn. I know that sounds utterly ridiculous and even heretical in certain circles, but do we believe the words of Christ or not? If only those who mourn are truly blessed and happy, then a church that loves the people will pray and teach in such a way that it leads the people to mourn. If we truly desire the true spiritual good of the people in the church, we will not be interested in positive thinking as such and we will want to throw the entertainment back to the pit. We must preach and teach in ways that our people will learn to mourn so that they will truly be happy. Of course they must learn what to mourn over and to have a heart of true love for God.
A second reason that we do not mourn is simply because some are too intellectual in the worldly sense. Christianity is approached from the intellectual point of view and when a person gains some information about a doctrine or truth that is thought to suffice. Another point is that even if we teach that the intellect is not enough the heart is so deceptive it tricks us into thinking that if we have had some experience relating to that bit of information or doctrine that we have had enough. Receiving a doctrine in the brain alone is not enough to make us mourn in truth. The Holy Spirit alone can drive the truth into the depths of our hearts and open our minds and souls to the reality of the great truths of Christianity. The truth of a doctrine must be seen how it relates to God and how people are to respond from the inner man to it. Christianity is a life that comes from the heart and is not a façade. Christianity is more than just an intellectual system; it is having the very life of God in the soul of man. This is far more than an intellectual challenge of game, it is life itself.

A third reason that we do not mourn flows from the fourth reason (see below). Between the two we will call both of them the main reason. We do not mourn because we do not love God enough. We either do not love God at all or we do not love Him enough. Either way we have little of no affection for God. If we don’t love Him then we will not mourn for the way people speak His name and go on to treat His name. We will mourn when our political party loses or when our sports teams lose, but we won’t mourn when the name of God is abused. This shows that our hearts do not love God more than our politics and our sports. Some will spend much time mourning over the moral or social ills in our nation or world and yet that mourning is not over how the name of God is being abused and ridiculed in the entertainment industry and the media.

We mourn over the things we love. We mourn when what we love is spoken ill of. We get down if our name is despised or dragged in the mud, but we desire to be socially acceptable when the name of God is blasphemed. We are horrified if something bad happens in the church and it goes public because we don’t want our church to be spoken of in a derogatory manner. However, where is our love for God and His honor? It honors God when church discipline is carried out in certain circumstances, but when we don’t do that because we don’t want things to be known and the church to be spoken of in a certain manner, we show that it is not God’s name that we love.

A fourth reason that we do not mourn is because we have no sense of God’s majesty. We have been deceived into thinking that if we run the church and keep certain doctrines, then we are doing God’s work. Others think that if the numbers are high and they give to missions, they are doing God’s work. In reality, no work for God is being done if it is not done out of a love for His glory and majesty. When the church becomes more of an institution than a place where God is exalted, then formalism and ritualism are being done no matter whether it is an entertainment model or a liturgical one. When God’s majesty is gone, the music can be contemporary, rock, country, or hymns and it will all be nothing but ritual in one form or another. No mourning for His glory will be done.

A fifth reason is that we have no true desires for His glory and kingdom. This reason flows from a love for God and a sense of His majesty. All that we do in the church apart from love for God and a sense of His majesty is just work to keep the institution going and perhaps to keep people busy in the church so that they will think that they are serving God. It is important to many people to think that they are serving God so that they can deceive themselves into thinking that they are Christians and good people. As long as the church is not seeking the glory of God and the advancement of His kingdom in reality out of a love for Him and His majesty, it is deceiving the people that are in it and keeping them from true Christianity.

How does this all relate to mourning? It shows several things that are related to mourning and why those that mourn are blessed. Next week I intend to show several essential Christian practices that are inextricably intertwined with true mourning. But for the moment I hope that it is clear that a mourning heart is at odds with the entertainment model of church. Churches in that model are in effect destroying what it takes to be truly happy. Churches that do not teach what true love for God is and how utterly glorious He is and focus on practical things (so-called), are really destroying what it takes to truly mourn and therefore true joy. True joy and happiness must come from God and come from the work of the Holy Spirit (Gal 5:22ff). Those who mourn in truth are those that have finished with the world and desire their joy from the very working of God in their souls. Those who love God desire His glory and kingdom in this world more than their own happiness. When that happens, God blesses those people with Himself and comforts them with the joy that the world knows nothing of.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)

Last week we looked at how those that are truly happy are those that mourn. If that statement still bothers you, then perhaps the point has not hit home as it should. Jesus said that the truly blessed (true happiness, inner joy) are those that mourn. Interestingly enough, only those that mourn in this way shall be comforted. So those that mourn in truth are those that have a greater degree of true joy. That may not sound right, but let us remember that Jesus spoke those words. We also have the Word of God speaking from Isaiah 66:10: “Be joyful with Jerusalem and rejoice for her, all you who love her; Be exceedingly glad with her, all you who mourn over her.” Without question this text speaks of people who mourn and are also exceedingly glad.

We should also know that the mourning that is being spoken of here is not the type of mourning that the natural man is able to do. The natural man mourns when he misses a meal, loses some money, or just about anything in which his selfish desires are thwarted. We know that there are types of mourning that are simply sin and nothing but sin: “He said to him, “O son of the king, why are you so depressed morning after morning? Will you not tell me?” Then Amnon said to him, “I am in love with Tamar, the sister of my brother Absalom” (II Samuel 13:4). Here Amnon was depressed or very sad because he could not have physical relations with Tamar. He was, in one sense, mourning over the situation. That type of person is not blessed.

“But Naboth said to Ahab, “The LORD forbid me that I should give you the inheritance of my fathers.” 4 So Ahab came into his house sullen and vexed because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him; for he said, “I will not give you the inheritance of my fathers.” And he lay down on his bed and turned away his face and ate no food. 5 But Jezebel his wife came to him and said to him, “How is it that your spirit is so sullen that you are not eating food?” (II Kings 21:3-5). Here we have the king of Israel sullen and mourning because he could not have the land and vineyard of another man. He went on to have the man killed. That is not a blessed mourning.

“So Haman took the robe and the horse, and arrayed Mordecai, and led him on horseback through the city square, and proclaimed before him, “Thus it shall be done to the man whom the king desires to honor.”12 Then Mordecai returned to the king’s gate. But Haman hurried home, mourning, with his head covered” (Esther 6:11-12). In this text we have Haman who wanted Mordecai dead. The king had Haman honor Mordecai which sent him home mourning. This was nothing but mourning produced by shame, envy, and even hatred. Haman tried to have Mordecai killed. This is not a blessed type of mourning.

With those examples in mind, we can know with certainty that all types of mourning are not blessed. This means that we must look for those types of mourning that are. Without question we should mourn for sin. All sin is against God (Psa 51:4) as David shows us and then he goes on to set out how he mourned. At the end of the Psalm, verse 17, he says this: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.” This contrition of heart over sin includes mourning. It is the heart that has lost its strength from self and any other motive not of God and is pulverized and sorrowful over its sin. That is the proper sacrifice to bring God and without a heart like that to some degree He is not pleased.

But lest we think that mourning is something that we can just work up, Ezekiel 24:23 sets out a different story: “‘Your turbans will be on your heads and your shoes on your feet. You will not mourn and you will not weep, but you will rot away in your iniquities and you will groan to one another.” The text shows that mourning was withheld from these people. Mourning is a gift of God. He must grant a soft heart that mourns over spiritual things. Man cannot do this in his own power. God has to give an understanding of sin and the heart to mourn for it. Romans 1:18-32 shows the other side of the issue. God gives some over to hard hearts and what they do is make excuses for sin and go on in other sin. A hard heart does not care about sin and is a judgment of God. A tender heart, on the other hand, is one that is sensitive to sin because it is against God and will mourn.

We have another example from II Chronicles 34:27: “Because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before God when you heard His words against this place and against its inhabitants, and because you humbled yourself before Me, tore your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you,” declares the LORD.” In this passage we see that God was pleased when king Josiah had a tender heart toward God and tore his clothes (a sign of sorrow and mourning) and wept before the Lord. Here we see that men should mourn for the sins of the nation. From the context of this passage, Josiah knew that the sins of the nation were against God. So we can make the deduction that a truly tender heart will mourn for the sins of others and even a nation.

How much does the Lord love hearts that mourn? Ezra 9 has a fascinating passage on this: “The LORD said to him, “Go through the midst of the city, even through the midst of Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations which are being committed in its midst.” 5 But to the others He said in my hearing, “Go through the city after him and strike; do not let your eye have pity and do not spare.
6 “Utterly slay old men, young men, maidens, little children, and women, but do not touch any man on whom is the mark; and you shall start from My sanctuary.” So they started with the elders who were before the temple.” What would happen if God struck down all those in the churches of today that did not sigh and grown over the abominations that are being done in the churches? Would we be like Abraham pleading for God to spare the church for just a few? But we should at least take notice that this was not a fake mourning and it was of the heart. This type of mourning was accompanied and marked by sighing and groaning. This points to a deep inner pain. The reason they were to mourn was because of the abominations being committed. But in reality, or at least I think it is rather obvious, they were mourning because the abominations were sins against God.

We can also look at Paul’s teaching on the subject in talking to others and then about himself. “You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst” (I Corinthians 5:2). When we see others sin, instead of allowing the sin to go without comment and instead of being overly harsh and judgmental, we are to mourn over their sin. We then see Paul’s heart at what he would do if the Corinthians did not repent: “I am afraid that when I come again my God may humiliate me before you, and I may mourn over many of those who have sinned in the past and not repented of the impurity, immorality and sensuality which they have practiced (II Cor 12:21). Then as James 4:9 tells us, “Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.”

The Scripture commands us to have joy in the Lord and even to rejoice in all things. However, a heart that loves and has joy in God and its neighbors will mourn over sin. God is the most beautiful and glorious Being that there can possibly be. His people should love Him with all of their beings. So when we understand that all sin is actually acts of hatred toward God and enmity against Him, we should mourn for our greatest love. The desires and prayers of the believer are to glorify God and to see His glory manifested in the world. When we see people hating our Beloved and acting with hostility toward Him which does not manifest His glory as we wish, we should mourn and lament this. It is simply a heart that loves God more than all other things. What would our churches look like if we had people that mourned and wept over the sins of the nation rather than being at war with them? What would our neighbors think if we mourned over their sin rather than attacked them over it? What would people in our churches think if we mourned over sinners within the church rather than angrily condemning them? Indeed we are called to denounce sin and out of love point these things out to people and it is love to point out sin to people if we are concerned about them and God’s glory. If we have no true mourning for their sin, perhaps we don’t have the right love for God and our neighbor when we point their sin out.

I hope that it is obvious at this point that mourning is consistent with the greatest of all joy. True mourning comes from a heart that loves God who is the source of all love and joy. True mourning comes out of a heart that is like Christ when He wept over Jerusalem, and yet He wanted His people to be full of His joy. A true mourning is not selfish and always sad over what self wants or self loses, but instead is a heart that God is working Himself into. The presence of God in the hearts of His people brings a heart that sees things a different way. No longer are sinners seen as enemies, but as people to mourn over because of the harm sin is bringing to them, their nation, and the glory of God. Perhaps in the USA we are just too selfish and lukewarm (at best) to have an inward pang for those that are on their way to hell and over God and His glory as it is attacked over and over. Shall we pass more laws or seek God for hearts that will mourn out of true love? Let us always remember that external morality fits very will with the Pharisees. Their spirit is alive and “well” in our day. Could it be that you are more like a Pharisee than one that mourns like Christ? Seek the Lord for a mourning for spiritual things that is moved by joy.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Matthew 5:4)

As shocking as it sounds to most people that it is those that are poor in spirit that are blessed (inward happiness or joy), the beatitude that we will look at today is even more shocking to the modern mind in the USA, if not everywhere. While we normally think that it is the people that are self-confident with high self-esteem that have true inner happiness rather than the poor in spirit, yet we can understand with more explanation how that might seem so. However, this beatitude tells us that those who mourn are the people that are truly happy and this seems so contradictory that it shocks people to hear that mourning and joy can be reconciled.

We must first consider that happiness is not in outer things but in God Himself. Happiness will only happen when a person is reconciled to God and His sovereign will. As long as we are fighting God and not content with what He wants, we will be unhappy and have inward tension. A lot of man’s unhappiness is the result of being frustrated with things that happen that man does not want. So when man submits to the Lord and seeks the will of God, man may find happiness because he is submitted to what God wants. The hidden or decretive will of God is always done and cannot fail to happen. If it is God’s pleasure that man is happy in a circumstance, then man should be happy in that circumstance since it is the Lord who brings it to pass. Spiritual growth occurs when man becomes more and more resolved to be pleased in all that the Lord wills.

Happiness should not be thought of in relation to how things affect me, but on how they relate to the glory of God. It is His joy and love in me that gives true joy. Mourning over the things that are against His glory is not inconsistent as a sign of true love and joy. When God puts such a love for Himself in the hearts of His people that they mourn over things because of how they relate to His name, then the same love that gives us reason to mourn is also attended with the joy of love for His glory. In other words, mourning over things that on this earth are against His name and glory is not inconsistent with true love and joy for God. It is the presence of God in the soul that brings the soul to a sight of things that produce true spiritual mourning, but it is also His presence that brings true joy to the soul. These things are not inconsistent in the spiritual realm.

I will even argue that a soul that does not mourn over certain things cannot ever know true joy. Not only, then, is a true mourning out of a true love not inconsistent with true inner happiness, but a true joy will not be possible on this earth apart from some degree of mourning. The things that God has put together here on earth are opposite of the way man things from his naturalistic way of thinking. The natural man cannot understand how mourning and happiness can go together, but that is because he is not thinking from a God-centered viewpoint. Let us think of Christ for an example. We know that Christ wept and mourned. We also know that Christ never sinned and so had perfect love for the Father at all times. We also know that Christ was given the Spirit without measure and the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy. If we put all those things together, can we imagine that Christ did not love the Father and have joy in Him while He wept and mourned? We can also know that Christ would not have wept and mourned in the same way if He had not loved and had joy in the Father. We can conclude that the divine life in a human soul will cause such a love and joy in the Father that man will mourn for certain things while in the midst of his love and joy in the Father. This is to be like Christ.

The affections are surely in view here. As we have affections of joy and delight, so there are affections of mourning as well. The mind sees or apprehends those things that are cause for mourning but the affections must feel it as well. We feel an inner pain when we mourn and have heaviness of heart. We must feel pain when that which we love is dishonored and trod in the dust. It must hurt us inwardly to see that beauty which we love to be spoken of in an evil fashion and mocked. The honor and glory of God which we love more than anything is being mocked and dishonored. How can we not have an inward response of pain to this? How can we love and delight in the cross without hurting to hear it despised and mocked? Surely that is the heart of Paul in Phil 3:18?

If our priority in prayer comes from a desire for the glory of God, how can we be without feeling when His name is dishonored? If our real desire is for His kingdom to come, then how can we watch the backward movement of the Church without inward pain? If our love is for His will and pleasure to be done, then how can we watch His will and pleasure being trampled on with each passing moment? This is an issue of the heart and it is an issue of our spirituality. If we are lukewarm, then our mourning will be lukewarm. If we are cold of heart, our mourning will be cold if we have any at all. If we have warm hearts for God and His glory, we may have pain when we mourn at times. The degree of our love for God and joy in Him is seen by our mourning for His name and kingdom.

A person who is poor in spirit mourns over the lost honor and glory of God more than his own. That person mourns over God’s kingdom more than his own and mourns over God’s pleasure more than his own. The degree of mourning corresponds to our depth of love for Him. The heart that hurts over God’s honor is the one that loves Him. The heart that loves His honor more than self is the one that loves Him. The one who loves the glory of God more than that of the self is the one that mourns when His glory appears to be eclipsed. In other words, it is not inconsistent for a person that loves God and has great joy in Him to mourn for Him at the same time.

C.S. Lewis put it this way: “The Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” It is because our desires for God are too weak and our desires for ourselves are too strong that we mourn for the wrong things and therefore have no joy in our mourning. A zeal for God is necessary if we are not to be lukewarm. Surely we can see that a faith in the living and all-delightful God who is beautiful beyond description will inspire a zeal to some degree. Surely this love and faith for Him will move our affections and make us feel for Him. We feel for family, ourselves, and things of the world. Surely we should have affections and feeling for God. Loving Him with all of our being includes the affections.

Paul instructs us in this matter as well: “and not only by his coming, but also by the comfort with which he was comforted in you, as he reported to us your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me; so that I rejoiced even more” (2 Corinthians 7:7). Paul heard of the longing, mourning, and zeal for him and this caused him to rejoice even more. This may sound self-centered if read in one sense, but let us not forget what Paul told them earlier in the letter: “Not that we lord it over your faith, but are workers with you for your joy” (II Cor 1:24). Paul worked with those people for their joy and did not see that it was inconsistent when they mourned for him as an apostle of Christ. A true mourning is a sign of true love for Christ which must be attended with a true joy.

Again, in the same letter, we see Paul not wanting to cause the people sorrow. “But I determined this for my own sake, that I would not come to you in sorrow again. 2 For if I cause you sorrow, who then makes me glad but the one whom I made sorrowful? 3 This is the very thing I wrote you, so that when I came, I would not have sorrow from those who ought to make me rejoice; having confidence in you all that my joy would be the joy of you all” (II Corinthians 2:1-3). In another letter he wrote this: “Convinced of this, I know that I will remain and continue with you all for your progress and joy in the faith” (Philippians 1:25).

As we have seen, Jesus wept and Paul had great affections. We do not mourn because we are half-hearted creatures fooling around with and desiring the world more than Christ and as such we are not like Christ or Paul. We do mourn over the absence and loss of what we love or desire. We mourn over lost games and money. We mourn when we do not get something we desire. Mourning and what we love the most go together. If we love God and His glory and kingdom the most, that will be our source of mourning in the sense that we will mourn when His glory is trod in the dust or when His kingdom is not advancing.

Do we mourn over our declension in love, faith, and prayer? We should mourn over God’s glory and kingdom, sin, others, and ourselves as to spiritual declension and sin. We should mourn over our lack of love and prayer. The Stoics desired not to desire so they could be at a perfect equilibrium at all times. They did not want to be disappointed with a loss or something bad that happened to them. But that is not Christianity. As Jonathan Edwards said in Religious Affections, true religion consists in the affections. As one greater than Jonathan Edwards said, “and though you have not seen Him, you love Him, and though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory” (I Peter 1:8). One even greater said this, “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Mat 13:44). A faith that has affections like that is a faith that will mourn with true happiness. Jesus said so and that means the issue is settled. May your week be filled with mourning.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3)

This week we will be looking at what the text tells us is the direct reason why the poor in spirit are blessed. It is because “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” On the surface this does not seem to be much of a reason to be blessed or have true inner joy in the present. However, when we probe a little deeper this is seen to be a blessing far beyond any other. In fact, this is perhaps the greatest reason to seek the experiential aspect of being poor in spirit and this teaches us even more about what it means to be poor in spirit. The blessing of what one is given by grace by being poor in spirit is as opposed to works, merit, and self-effort as a text can be.

What is the kingdom of heaven? As has been so well put in past days, a kingdom is where the king reigns. Now if we think this through, we see that those who are poor in spirit are blessed because they have the kingdom of heaven. But those that are not blessed do not have the kingdom of heaven and so they are of another kingdom. This surely points to the biblical truth that the libertarian view of free will is simply bogus. As Luther put it, man is like a horse ridden by one or the other. Man is ridden by the devil or by Christ. Man is not free to have a third choice, but man is under the dominion of one kingdom or another. As Colossians 1:13 puts it, “For He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.” To be in the kingdom of Christ is to be delivered from the domain (power and authority) and kingdom of darkness (devil). Now while that is putting it in rather stark terms, the picture should be quite clear. Men and women are all under the authority and power of the evil one unless they are delivered from it and transferred to the kingdom of the Beloved (Christ).

Luke 11 gives us this concept from the lips of Christ: “17 But He knew their thoughts and said to them, “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and a house divided against itself falls. 18 “If Satan also is divided against himself, how will his kingdom stand? For you say that I cast out demons by Beelzebul. 19 “And if I by Beelzebul cast out demons, by whom do your sons cast them out? So they will be your judges. 20 “But if I cast out demons by the finger of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.” Jesus is showing that there are two kingdoms. One kingdom is that of Satan and the other is that of the kingdom of God. Satan ruled and rules by his influence, authority, and power and part of that was by demonic influence. When Christ came and cast out demons, this demonstrated that the kingdom of God was there.

The Gospel is presented to us in terms of the kingdom in many places. When Jesus first started His ministry it is said that He went about preaching the Gospel of the kingdom (Mat 4:23; 9:35). When Jesus was speaking of the end times He spoke of the Gospel of the Kingdom being preached to the whole world before the end would come (Mat 24:14). As mentioned above, salvation is presented in Colossians 1:13 as being a transfer from the domain and authority of darkness to the kingdom of the Beloved.

Let us take a look at another passage. “So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” 33 They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never yet been enslaved to anyone; how is it that You say, ‘You will become free ‘?” 34 Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is the slave of sin” (John 8:31-34). Here we see that Jesus was telling the Jews that those who were His disciples were truly free because they had been freed by the truth. The Jews did not understand and told Jesus that they were Abraham’s descendants and had never been enslaved. Apart from the absurdity of that since they had been taken into captivity on previous occasions, Jesus was referring to the slavery of sin. All that continue in sin are slaves of sin. So we see the two kingdom approach again and yet without the using the term “kingdom.” All are slaves of sin unless they are disciples of Christ. Only those who are disciples of Christ were and are not slaves of sin. These and these alone are the people that are free.

We also see the same teaching in different ways throughout the New Testament. We see this taught very clearly in Romans: “16 Do you not know that when you present yourselves to someone as slaves for obedience, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin resulting in death, or of obedience resulting in righteousness?
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, 18 and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness.
19 I am speaking in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification” (8:16-19). All men are slaves of just one of just two things. All people are slaves of sin or they are slaves of God and of righteousness. There is no autonomy of the human will here at all since all are under the authority and power of either Satan through sin or God through righteousness. As Romans 5:21 puts it, “so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.” Men are ruled by sin or by grace. As Ephesians 2:1-3 sets out, man is dead in his sins and trespasses and follows the course of the world as it is set out and determined by the prince of the power of the air. The only rescue is by the mercy, love, and grace of God (Eph 2:4-10). Again, the same teaching is set out.

Throughout the New Testament Christ is called the “Lord Jesus” and the “Lord Jesus Christ.” At the end of times every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil 2:8-11). He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords (Revelation 17:14; 19:16). For Christ to be King there must be something that He rules over and that means that there is a kingdom. His kingdom is in the hearts of His people and His kingdom is within His people (Luke 17:20-21). Christ lives in the hearts of His people by His Spirit and it is the Spirit’s work in the hearts that sets out the life of His kingdom.

Now how does this relate to the blessing of being poor in spirit? I hope that it crystal clear by now that the blessing of being poor in spirit is that the kingdom of God dwells in those people and those alone. The reign and rule of Satan is through sin which is really pride and self-centeredness. It is a terrible thing to be ruled over by an evil person. Being full of pride and self is evil since those things are opposed to the glory of God. That means that all people that do not have the reign of Christ in them are those that are ruled by evil people (self and the devil). But those that are poor in spirit are those that have been emptied of pride and self as rulers which are those things that the devil reigns by. We must remember at this point that people that are outwardly moral but not delivered from pride and self are simply very wicked people in their self-righteousness. Religious people can be as proud and self-centered as anyone, if not more so. But only those that are poor in spirit have the reign of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven in the heart. That is a true blessing.

Those that are not poor in spirit are ruled by pride and self which are the tools of the devil and even the character of the devil. Being poor in spirit is a work of grace in the heart of a person so that the person does not trust in his own righteousness by pride and self. Being poor in spirit means that a person is empty of self (not perfectly) and so has room for the reign and life of Christ. We can easily see how the reign of Christ and of grace is a blessing. As Colossians 1:13 shows us, this kingdom is a kingdom of the Beloved Son. In this kingdom, then, there is love and even more love than an earthly soul can imagine. If Christ dwells in a person, then that person is full of the very love of God in the Person of Christ who dwells in His people by the Spirit who pours out the love of God in the hearts of believers (Rom 5:5).

Those that are poor in spirit are those that have been emptied of self and pride. How is that a blessing? Because Christ must work humility in hearts in order that the heart may receive grace (James 4:6). A person that is full of self and pride can never know what love is since that person is too focused on self to love. Pride is the opposite of humility and love. A proud person is ruled by self and will not be ruled over by the humble Savior and Lord who works humility into the hearts of those He rules over and reigns in. In fact, a proud person does not have the life of Christ in him because there is no room for anyone but self in that heart. So the poor in spirit are blessed because they have Christ as their Savior and Lord. He rules in them.

One other aspect of the blessing of the kingdom in the hearts of the people is that sin and death no longer rules over those in that kingdom. Sin is the worst thing that can happen to people as it leads to hardness of heart and then hell. Living in sin and pride is to treasure up wrath for the day of wrath (Rom 2:4). What a blessing it is to be delivered from slavery to sin and to treasure up treasures in heaven. What a blessing it is to be delivered from hate and hating (Titus 3:3-4) as unbelievers do as seen by the light of reality to the kingdom of the Beloved. What a blessing to be delivered from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of Light. What a blessing to be delivered from the horror and rule (devil) of selfishness and pride to the reign and rule of grace and love. There can now be no question why the poor in spirit are blessed. Now we must pray for the grace to seek it with all of our hearts.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3)

I would like to take a short detour in one sense and yet continue to deal with the Beatitudes as. I will be dealing with the theological and practical ramifications of the concept of being poor in spirit. Last week I tried to set out that a person that came to the stunning realization of the reality of his or her spiritual condition is a person that has been confronted with the reality of his or her spiritual condition. The person that is poor in spirit has had his eyes opened to the reality of sin by the Holy Spirit and sees that he is an impoverished beggar in the spiritual realm with no way of obtaining anything in and of himself. This person in the spiritual realm is like the Lazarus in Scripture that was a beggar and yet had to be carried to locations to even beg. This type of person that has no righteousness or strength in self is the only kind of person that can trust in Christ and His righteousness alone.

The detour that I mentioned is to look at a statement of Luther in his Bondage of the Will and show how this beatitude fits with Luther’s view of man and sin. So in one sense this is a detour, but in another it is just showing how this applies to the nature of man. It might not be obvious at first glance to see how this text relates to the depravity of man and the bondage of man’s will. I hope to show how this is true.

God has surely promised His grace to the humbled: that is, to those who mourn over and despair of themselves. But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone. As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God; but plans out for himself (or at least hopes and longs for) a position, an occasion, a work, which shall bring him final salvation. But he who is out of doubt that his destiny depends entirely on the will of God to work in him; and such a man is very near to grace for his salvation.

(p. 100 of the Packer & Johnson translation).

Last time I tried to point out that the pronoun “theirs” points to the fact that only those that are poor in spirit are blessed and have the kingdom of heaven. This is a corollary with God having promised His grace to the humbled. Luther finishes his first sentence by showing us what he means by humbled. He says that is “to those who mourn over and despair of themselves.” Interesting how the next beatitude is the blessing on those who mourn. However, what we want to see at the moment is that Luther’s idea of despairing of self is surely the concept of being poor in spirit. The person that has recognized that he is truly impoverished in spirit and has no means of obtaining anything for himself is one that despairs of self in terms of righteousness and salvation.

Luther goes on to say that “a man cannot be thoroughly humbled until he realizes his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works.” This is simply the description of a man that has recognized and arrived at the reality of his own poorness in spirit. A man does not become a spiritual beggar that is totally impoverished until he arrives at the point of realizing that salvation is utterly beyond all that he has or can do. What Luther is describing, I think, is the person that is poor in spirit. In one sense Luther has described what the person believes about himself, but then he goes on to say that the person must understand that salvation “depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone.” Now how does that fit with what he said previously? It seems to be clear that until a person depends absolutely on God and His work alone, that person has not been humbled of his own ability and worth and so is not in despair of himself.

Luther then adds another qualification: “As long as he is persuaded that he can make even the smallest contribution to his salvation, he remains self-confident and does not utterly despair of himself, and so is not humbled before God.” A person that is impoverished of spirit is utterly destitute of any righteousness in and of himself and has nothing to help himself. There can be no confidence in self at all and as long as a person thinks that he can contribute the smallest amount to salvation he is not humbled and broken before God and so does not look to grace alone. A person like that wants Christ to do virtually everything, but not absolutely everything. A person like that wants grace for virtually everything, but not absolutely everything. He is not poor in spirit.

We see in our day a lack of belief in the doctrine of the total depravity of man. May believe that man has been influenced by sin, but not many see that man is dead in sin. While some hold to the doctrine of total depravity in creed and intellect, it has yet to make its way into the practices and methods of evangelism and sanctification. But if Matthew 5:3 is understood as the person that is poor in spirit is a person that is utterly destitute of any righteousness or ability to help himself, then we must think through much of what passes as evangelism and sanctification today. If a man is so depraved that he cannot do any good at all, then that has a major impact on how we are to evangelize. If a person is only blessed if they reach the point of realizing and acquiescing to this, then we had better change our methods. If a man must utterly despair of helping himself and is not thoroughly humbled until he realizes that salvation is beyond his powers and abilities, even totally beyond his own abilities and powers, then the beatitudes instruct us of how to teach people the way to blessedness and salvation.

If we look at the Beatitudes for a moment and how they correlate with the Sermon on the Mount (SOM), we can see how Jesus strove to break men from confidence and trust in themselves. In one sense the Beatitudes can be looked at as a method to be followed in evangelism and Jesus certainly tried to break men from any hope in themselves. In the SOM Jesus was certainly preaching to people that needed to be converted. The following is a list of the Beatitudes: Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are those who mourn, Blessed are the gentle, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, Blessed are the merciful, Blessed are the pure in heart, and Blessed are the peacemakers. All of these require that a person be poor in spirit.

As we look at the Beatitudes, we should see that these describe people that are converted and blessed. Surely, then, this should inform us in the method of evangelism. We see that those who are poor in spirit are blessed. We should strive to help people see how utterly bankrupt they are spiritually so that they will despair of any hope in themselves. Then we should want to see them mourn over their own sins. We would want to see them meek and gentle before God as broken people should be. A person that despairs of self, mourns for his sins, and is then broken to the point of meekness by them is a person that begins to hunger and thirst for righteousness. A person that begins to hunger and thirst for righteousness in truth is one that is pursuing a pure heart and desires to see men have peace with each other and then with God. This is exactly what Christ did in the SOM. Men are not converted until they reach that point of despair in themselves and then look to God alone to save them.

The Gospel is set out in the doctrine of justification by faith alone or by faith without works. The teaching of the first beatitude is that the blessed person is poor in spirit. That is exactly what justification by faith alone teaches. It teaches that a man must turn from anything that he can do or offer in order to trust in Christ alone. It is for man to be delivered from works or anything he is or does. It is to look to God alone for salvation through Christ alone and that by grace alone. The person that is poor in spirit does not look to anyone or anything but God to be saved and to no one or nothing but Christ as His Savior. The person that is poor in spirit does not have anything but grace to look to and offers no resistance to or anything to assist grace in salvation. As Luther put it, “But a man cannot be thoroughly humbled till he realizes that his salvation is utterly beyond his own powers, counsels, efforts, will, and works, and depends absolutely on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of Another-God alone.” Depending on the will, counsel, pleasure and work of another are things that the person that is poor in spirit does. That is why a person must be poor in spirit to be blessed and to have the kingdom of heaven.

The Beatitudes are not usually thought of in terms of the Gospel. But that really needs to be thought through some more. If a person is only blessed by having the kingdom of heaven if s/he is poor in spirit, then this must be considered with the Gospel in mind. The kingdom of heaven is entered by the new birth (John 3:3-8) and it appears that it grows as a person grows in the faith. Yet Jesus taught that the kingdom was within. How glorious is the teaching that shows us what we must have in order to be blessed of God and what A true blessing really is. Since the kingdom of heaven is within us we can know that the inner man is vital to this teaching. Isaiah 57:15 tells us the one that God dwells in and that is the contrite and lowly in spirit. God is immutable which means that He does not change. He loved to dwell in the lowly in spirit in the Old Testament and He loves to dwell in the poor in spirit today. In fact, those are the only ones that He dwells in. We must seek this and teach others to seek it as well. Salvation is not praying a prayer; it is having God dwell within us. God dwells in the poor in spirit and those alone. That is what it means to be blessed.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3)

The believer has great joy in looking at the words of Christ on what true blessedness is. However, we must be warned that to hear or read about it is not the same as to walk in it and to be truly blessed. What we need, to use older language, is to have an experiential knowledge of this. One reason for this is the pronoun “theirs.” This word teaches us that only the poor in spirit are blessed and have the kingdom of heaven. The text does not teach that all those who know about it, have read about it, or even extensively know about it are blessed. No, it says that the poor in spirit are blessed and they have the kingdom of heaven. There is no entry into the kingdom of God without this. There is no one in the kingdom that is not poor in spirit. It is a fundamental characteristic of the Christian.

The world and a vast number of people within the visible church focus on self-reliance, self-confidence, and self-expression. You are supposed to have high self-esteem and great self-confidence in today’s world, but not according to this verse which is a total antithesis to the worldly way of looking at things. The world and many within the visible church will actually teach all types and forms of self-centeredness as being Christian. This verse, however, simply will not allow for that. If this is so vital to what it means to be a true believer, then this is a teaching that should be proclaimed in opposition to all the teaching of self within and without the Church.

Let us look at what the meaning of this is. The word “poor” in the original has the idea of being utterly destitute and a beggar. Not only is this person utterly destitute and a beggar, this person has no way and no means of obtaining anything. This is descriptive of a person that is totally helpless and is the exact opposite of self-confidence, self-righteousness, self-dependence, and self-esteem. One biblical picture of this is the beggar Lazarus as described in Luke 16:20. Lazarus was a beggar but he even had to be carried to a place in order to beg. This is the picture of the person that is poor in spirit. Not only is this person without any means in the spiritual realm, this person has no way of helping self. The one that is poor in spirit has to be carried by grace to even be able to beg at the throne of grace for more grace. All that this person has will only be obtained by begging as this person has nothing to commend himself with and nothing to obtain anything with or by.

To be poor in spirit in this sense is more than just to be spiritually poor. All people are spiritually impoverished in reality. But what it means is that a person must come to recognize this and experientially live like it which is to live on the sustenance and bounty of another. It is to know from the heart what this is. It is more than a cognizant awareness; it is to feel it in the depths of the soul so that you know impoverishment of soul and know that you need Christ. It is to be so destitute of righteousness that you flee to Christ and realize that you have no way of obtaining righteousness apart from the free gift of Christ. It is to trust in the fullness of the atonement of Christ and in His perfect work. It is to trust in the mediatorial work of Christ to the point that you rest in Him and His intercessory work alone to bring you into the presence of the Father. It is trusting in the one and only sacrifice of Christ as all sufficient. It is trusting in Christ to present you perfect before the Father as a result of His gift of righteousness.

All people are born in the world without any righteousness and a sinful nature. All then go on to live in a way that treasures up wrath against the day of wrath. This means that all people are in reality spiritually destitute in and of themselves. All that they do falls short of the perfect standard of God which is to love Him with all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength. But not all people come to feel the weight of this and bow in submission to King Jesus. So our text is not teaching that all people are blessed because they are poor in spirit since all are that way in reality, but those that come to an experiential understanding and knowledge of who they are before a holy God are blessed. It is in knowing and experiencing this that one demonstrates that he is blessed and that he is one with the kingdom of heaven. This means that people should strive for this state from the depths of their heart.

Poverty of spirit is the opposite of a haughty, self-assertive and self-sufficient disposition. It is to realize that I am nothing, have nothing, can do nothing, and have need of all things. It is a consciousness of my emptiness that comes from a painful discovery that my best performances are as filthy rags (Isa 64:6). It follows the understanding that my best performances are unacceptable and even an abomination before the Holy One. It is the realization that I stand before a holy God with nothing of myself that is acceptable and even worse it is all damnable. It is to recognize the stark reality that I have nothing in myself that is acceptable before God when I stand before Him on judgment day. But even more, it is that chilling sense of utter weakness in knowing that I have nothing to obtain any righteousness before His sterling and perfect holiness. It is to realize that when the text says that “no one is righteous, no not one” (Rom 3:10), that it means me in the depths of my being. It is to know that when the text says that “no one seeks God” (Rom 3:11), it means me and that for my whole life.

Poverty of spirit is the other side of faith. It is the realization of my utter worthlessness which precedes my trust in Christ for all. It is the Spirit emptying me of self so that Christ may fill it. The one who is poor in spirit has the absence of pride, of self-assurance, and self-reliance. It means that we see ourselves as nothing in the presence of God and that we can do nothing in ourselves. It is the tremendous awareness of the utter nothingness of self in one sense as we come face to face with God, yet on the other hand it means the presence of much sin. When this person comes before God, s/he does not trust in morality and good behavior. This person is emptied of self as Isaiah was in Isaiah 6:5 and wants nothing but Christ to stand in and upon. Isaiah saw the holiness of God and he came to an end of his own righteousness. The “woe is me” that Isaiah uttered is the sense of the heart in all those that are poor in spirit. How painful it is to come to an end of our own righteousness.

Until one comes to the stark realization that s/he is unworthy to seek his or her own honor, s/he will not seek the honor and glory of God. Oh how necessary it is to be poor in spirit so that one will seek the glory of God in all things and love Him with all of our being. How necessary it is to be broken of self and poor in spirit to have a real concern for others. Those that are broken from the strength of self are alone those that will trust and depend on God for all things. One must be broken from self-strength to trust in the strength of God. Perhaps an analogy might help for illustrative purposes. It is said by lifeguards that until a drowning swimmer gives up and relies totally on the lifeguard that there is not a lot they can do to save the person. Rather, all the struggles of the drowning person actually put the lifeguard in danger and prevent any real help for the drowning person. The same is true in the spiritual realm. A person that has not given up on self will not trust in the Savior alone. Only those that have given up their struggle to obtain any righteousness at all in their own strength will trust totally in the Savior.

Several people in the Bible had distinct and painful discoveries of their own poverty of spirit, though the texts that describe these do not use the same words. “Then He said, “Do not come near here; remove your sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 He said also, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Then Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God: (Exodus 3:5-6). Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. Why is that? He was standing in the presence of the Holy One. To stand before God is to come to the realization that God can strike you down as He pleases, but it is also to realize what it is to be so unholy in the presence of perfect holiness. It brings fear.

It was said that Job was a righteous man. Evidently that was in comparison to other men and Job evidently thought he was righteous as well. The Lord allowed Satan to afflict Job in many ways and Job thought that he had done nothing wrong and so could not understand why God did this to him. However, eventually after some bad counselors Job heard from God Himself. Then he replied, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; But now my eye sees You; 6 Therefore I retract, And I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5-6). Just hearing about God in his case was not what was needed. It was to “see” God and to realize who God was. The text is translated as “I retract,” but in reality the term means “abhor,” “despise,” and “reject.” When Job saw and understood God, He abhorred and rejected himself in light of the glory of God. He no longer wanted to argue with God about his righteousness, but was ready to defend the righteousness of God rather than his own. He recognized his utter impoverishment of spirit in the presence of God. No longer did he trust in his own righteousness at all.

We see the same type of thing in David, Isaiah, John, Paul, and Peter. We see that God dwells on high but also with the contrite and lowly in spirit (Isa 57:15). While most people today think of being poor in spirit as something negative and uncomfortable, the great saints of God sought this very thing. They desired the presence of God and knew that a high view of self was not consistent with this. They were brought low in regards to trusting in self and their own righteousness. But this was not a bad thing at all, for it meant that they had a view of themselves in accordance with reality. When a person arrives at that, it means that God has been emptying His temple so that He can reside in it. Man is either full of self or full of God; it is one or the other. A person must be poor in spirit in order to be the dwelling place of God. That is why the poor in spirit are blessed and no one else.

As we begin to focus on differing aspects of the Beatitudes, we must ask “who” those are that are blessed and “why” they are blessed. But first we must consider the “when” of the blessing. Our first clue as to the “when” the blessings start is when each of the Beatitudes begins with a “blessed are.” For example, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Mat 5:3). There are many ramifications for when this blessedness starts. But people are not said to be blessed exclusively in the future, but the blessing or inner joy is to be now. At least that is the clear teaching of the first beatitude. At the very least the blessing starts now.Each of the beatitudes begins with the “blessed are,” but not all of them say that the reason for the blessing is that it is a present possession. In fact, the second through the seventh give the reason that people are blessed with the words that start off with “for they shall.” That certainly sounds like something that people will have to wait until eternity to have. However, we should not jump on that idea too fast without giving it some serious thought. Why are people blessed now if they have to wait for it until eternity? True enough that the full experience of the blessings of salvation and of knowing God will have to wait until eternity, but that does not mean that salvation and knowing God do not start now. In eternity those things will grow.

We can at least admit the possibility that just because the words are in the future tense does not necessarily mean that one must wait for eternity for the whole blessing. Another point that must be made is that the first beatitude and the eighth beatitude have the same blessing. There is some discussion about whether the Beatitudes continue after the eighth beatitude or not. For the moment, we will look at the Beatitudes as having eight expressions. In that case, we have the first beatitude and the last beatitude as bookends. Each of them give the same reason for the blessing and both are in the present tense. Both tell us that certain types of people are blessed because “theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” But how are we to understand this if the other six are in the future tense?

I would like to propose another way of looking at the Beatitudes. We know that the text teaches us that the kingdom of heaven is a present possession. Perhaps what we should ask is in what sense are the promises future. Are these promises held out as something to be obtained in heaven or things that will be obtained as people “fulfill the conditions” that are set out? In other words, if this is true the future tense simply points to the fulfillment of the conditions. For example, the second beatitude teaches “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted” (Mat 5:4). Now we should not think of trying to force out mourning so that we can be comforted. But we should know that those that have hearts so tender to God that they mourn for the right reasons, then those are the hearts that shall be comforted. Is that heart comforted in eternity? Yes, but is the promise only limited to that? I don’t think that the future tense has to mean that. It only has to mean that it happens as a result of the mourning.

When the text tells us that “blessed are those that mourn,” the word “mourn” is a participle in the present active. In other words, this is a description that is ongoing of a certain type of person. This describes the character of a person and it describes a person that mourns over and over. Mourning is a description of those that are truly blessed of God. So I think that the future tense of the comforting of this type of person is a promise that this person will continue to be blessed in the future. To link this with the kingdom of heaven as in the first beatitude, the person that has the kingdom of heaven is the type of person that mourns and has joy in that mourning because he or she receives the continuing comfort of God. This also fits with the biblical portrait of God since His lovingkindnesses are new every morning. God is a God that gives fresh blessings and fresh strength. He renews the strength of His people. It also fits with God’s nature to work a heart in people to make them fit for blessings.

We must take into consideration that people are blessed because of the promise attached at the end of each of the Beatitudes. If the promise is not something that can be attained to now, then the blessedness is also not attainable now. But the text clearly tells us that people are in a state of blessing now. This means that the promises must be applied now as well. If a person that mourns is blessed right now and he is said to be blessed because he shall be comforted, then he is only blessed now if he is comforted now. The promise, then, must be an encouragement that it will always be there for those that follow hard after God and seek hearts that are described in the Beatitudes. This is a great encouragement that as long as we have a heart that truly mourns God will keep on giving the comfort. That is the strength that we need to keep mourning.
This way of looking at the Beatitudes is also important because of how each beatitude relates to the Beatitudes as a whole. Biblical expositors have looked at the Beatitudes in various ways and have linked them together in various ways too. If each of the Beatitudes builds on the other, then it makes far more sense to look at the blessings as building on each other as well. If the blessing for those that mourn, for example, is to be comforted, then that is what builds the person to be meek and to hunger and thirst for righteousness. It seems to be a great burden for people to practice all of the Beatitudes without the promises to sustain them. In this way the souls that are persecuted receive blessings to enable them to withstand the persecution rather than the persecution coming on top of mourning and meekness. While mourning and meekness describe those that are blessed, they also describe those that receive the comfort and strength of God through the promises.

I also think that it is best to look at the Beatitudes in this way (receiving the promises now) because of the way the Beatitudes relate to the rest of the Sermon on the Mount (SOM). When Jesus gives the Beatitudes, He does not leave them behind when He starts with the rest of the SOM. Rather, He is describing what kind of person that lives according to His teaching. Living out the Beatitudes is the only way to live out the SOM. Without the things promised to those described in the Beatitudes, the SOM is beyond impossible for a human being to accomplish. For example, Jesus teaches and commands several things in the SOM: “But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. 40 “If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41 “Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. 42 “Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you. 43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’ 44 “But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 “For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?”

What does it take to turn our cheek when one is struck? At the very least, it takes a person that is poor in spirit, is meek, merciful, pure in heart, and a peacemaker. But the promises for being those things are what a person needs to carry out what those states of heart demand. One cannot just keep being struck without the promises of God applied to his heart to sustain him. So the promises are what sustain a person to keep turning the cheek. Then we see that man is to love his enemy as well. Surely it is clear that many of the Beatitudes are necessary to be able to love a person’s enemy. But the promises are as necessary as the state of the heart as well. It is those with a certain kind of heart that have the promises and the heart and the promise together sustain the person to keep on pursuing the things of God.

As we go on in our study of the Beatitudes, let us be careful to take each of the Beatitudes as a whole. There is the declaration of blessedness. Then it tells us what type of person is blessed. Then the text tells us what it is that makes that person blessed. The Beatitudes tells us of the kind of hearts that God loves and the kind of hearts that He works in His people. This is not a section of Scripture that teaches us how to attain a type of heart by hard work, but underneath this what is taught is that the Beatitudes describe how a fallen human being that has eternal life in His heart is to be. This should teach us great humility, not to be proud and think that we can attain hearts like this by our own works.

But for the moment, know that it takes great pain and death to self in order to have hearts like Christ describes in the Beatitudes. However, behold the promises that He sets out and know that this happens only by grace. Let us set our minds on things above and covenant with God to serve Him with our whole beings. Pray that He would open the eyes of our hearts so that we could see the things that we have reserved for self from Him. Pray that He would rip pride out of our heart by the roots. Pray that He would make us like Christ. After all, what do you think the Beatitudes point to? Surely you will agree that they Beatitudes teach us how to be like Christ and that we need the life of Christ in us to even begin to have hearts like this. Indeed, that is what is going on. Man is driven to the end of himself, even the death of self, and Christ must live in us if we will have hearts as described in the Beatitudes. The promises must be for the present because the promises are really the life of Christ in the heart as applied by the Spirit.

The world is terribly confused about what blessedness is. Another problem is that the Church is more like the world in what it believes about blessedness. The confusions abound about this topic. However, there is no real need to be confused on this issue. While there are many teachings on this issue, Jesus is the One that we must listen to on this topic and any other. Jesus gave us specific teachings on the blessed life.First, we must look at what the word “blessed” means. Most think of it in terms of happiness, but to get at the depths of the meaning of the word and the biblical concept in its own context we must dig deeper. What is happiness? It would appear that the world thinks of happiness as the feeling of pleasure that goes along with whatever they like. So the world thinks of being happy when something they like happens and when things they don’t like don’t happen. But what we can’t miss is that the world operates on feelings of pleasure in response to things received or of something done to them in the material realm. The world thinks of happiness as being produced by what is obtained or by what is received. The world, then, is dependent on other people and things to produce for them the pleasures or attitudes that are needed to make them happy.

The biblical concept, however, is much different. The concept of blessedness is deeper than a mere superficial happiness. On the one hand the word can have the idea of happiness, but it really goes to an inner joy and not just the outward response. In another sense there is a blessedness that comes relative to the position one has granted in Christ. The truly blessed person in biblical terms is blessed no matter what happens to him or her because s/he is in a state of blessedness granted by the living God. There is nothing that can happen to the true believer that is not intended by God for good and He will turn everything to the good of His people (Rom 8:28-39). The true believer is also told that s/he has a Father that trains and disciplines a person out of love in order that s/he may share in His holiness (Heb 12:10). Believers can also know that whatever else happens to them, as long as they are beholding the glory of God they are being changed from one degree of glory to a greater degree of glory (II Cor 3:18).

While it is truly an astounding concept, the believer is blessed because of his position in Christ. All that the Father sends to His children in Christ is meant to make them like Christ which is the greatest blessing possible. The believer must develop the mindset that even if people abuse me and mistreat me, that should provoke joy in me and bring me to rejoicing in the Father (Mat 5:11-12). Believers are to consider themselves blessed because of their position in Christ at all times. They are to grow in humility and submission to God throughout their lives in order to be able to accept whatever trials the Lord brings to them and respond in joy. This does not mean that the joy will come in an instant each time, but that the believer sees that God is working all things to bring them to greater degrees of glory in order that they may love Him and see His glory through their Beloved in all things.

The Word of God tells us that those who are truly blessed either practice or are described by the following things: being poor in spirit, mourns, gentle or meek, hunger and thirst for righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, are peacemakers, and are persecuted. There is nothing in that list that corresponds to what the world would call blessed or happy. There is hardly anything in that list that the vast majority within Christendom thinks is conducive to true happiness. Why is that? Most likely it is because hardly anyone believes what Jesus says anymore. If we really believe that Jesus is Lord, we need to understand that joy and happiness are found in being like Him and not the world. Those who love the world do not have the love of God in them (I John 2:15-17).

What are the things that the world pursues in its effort to be happy? The world teaches us that we are to think highly of ourselves and take pride in who we are and what we do. The world teaches us that we should be confident in our ability to make good and moral choices. The world teaches us to think that we are good and that when we do wrong it is nothing but a choice. The world thinks that happiness is to laugh and be entertained by all sorts of lewd and silly things. The world teaches that happiness is in getting revenge and getting back at people. The world teaches us that happiness is obtained by having more material things and being free to pursue sinful lifestyles. The world thinks that the more we can fill our minds with television and movies and certain kinds of books the happier we will be. The world thinks that if we can just stop people from saying bad things about us and not shoot us then happiness is just getting along. In other words, the world pursues riches, material possessions, and glory and honor for self. One would almost think that the world is at war with God when the list of things that the world wants is compared to what Christ says.

How can it be that the person that is poor in spirit and mourns is happier than the rich and worldly person that does all for himself and his own honor? The very fact that we might be surprised about this shows that the world has influenced us far more than Jesus has. Let us look at the life of Christ for a moment. Did the things of the world bring joy and happiness to Christ? What was it that He sought? Well, we do see Jesus going to parties and hanging out with people that were not religious. But Jesus constantly sought to manifest the name of God wherever He was and whatever He did. His pleasure and joy was in pleasing the Father. Hebrews 12:2 tells us that Christ endured the cross for the joy that was set before Him. We can also know that all that Christ did in life was primarily for the glory of God, but also to earn righteousness for His bride the Church. We know from Ephesians 5:1-2 that Christ loved His people and gave Himself up for them. Then in Ephesians 5:25 we see that “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her.” The life and death of Christ were filled with suffering and persecutions and therefore with perfect joy and peace. Believers are to pursue what He pursued.

We must also remember that love is always attended with some degree of joy. Christ walked in perfect love all of His life and we know that because nothing is acceptable without love (I Cor 13:1-3). We see that the new commandment given by Christ, which was really not brand new, but a new way of looking at it, was for His disciples to love others as Christ had loved them (John 13:34). We know that Jesus was filled with the Spirit and all that have the Spirit have the joy of God (Rom 5:5; I John 3:24-25; 4:13-16). In fact, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy (Gal 5:22). Jesus lived life on earth abiding in the love of the Father (John 15:10) and said that He wanted His disciples to have His joy in them and that their joy would be made full (John 15:11; 17:13). Jesus also prayed to the Father and said that He had made the name of the Father known “so that the love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.” I don’t think that it can be denied that despite being the Man of sorrows Jesus lived a life of perfect joy on earth. He was not wealthy and depended on the financial support of others. He also did not own a house and had a rock for a pillow. His joy was inner and it was from God.

As we begin a study on true blessedness, let us remember that Jesus Christ is our example in this. There is no true blessedness apart from His teaching and His life and death. The world wants to avoid all suffering and discomfort, but Jesus embraced those things and He had perfect love and joy. The Church must learn to look to Christ instead of the world in its pursuit of blessedness. In a different way, we must see that blessedness will not be found in just imitating Christ, but in the life of Christ being lived in and through us. We must always keep in mind as we pursue blessedness that we are not to pursue joy apart from Christ, but joy as a part of the life of Christ in us. So when we pursue what each beatitude tells us, we must never think that we can do this in our own strength and power. True blessedness is simply the Spirit working the life of Christ in us that we may share in His life.

This should necessarily teach us not to seek blessedness apart from the inner life of the believer. This is not something that is exclusively external, but is something that flows from the heart to the external. There may be many that try to copy the outward acts that the beatitudes prescribe, but without the heart they are not living by the power of God in the heart. Christianity is of the heart and not just the behavior. The essence of the beatitudes goes to the depths of the heart as well. What we are in the depths of our inner person is what we really are.

We should also note what the things are that make a person blessed. The kingdom of heaven is mentioned twice. Why should one want to be impoverished of spirit? We should desire that because that is the true state of affairs, but also because only those have the kingdom of heaven. What is that kingdom? It is the reign and rule of Jesus Christ in the hearts of man. The greatest blessing that man can attain to is to have Jesus Christ reigning in his heart and not his selfish and prideful desires that follow after the domain and rule of darkness. Blessedness is always linked with Christ in terms of what it is and what it leads to. This shows a great difference between what the world thinks of blessedness and what the Bible sets it out as. The world wants to follows the desires and rule of self as blessedness. Scripture says that the man following after the lusts of self is really in the bondage of sin and of the devil. The Bible also says that having Christ and His reign of grace is real blessedness. The essence of blessedness, then, is to be in the state where that which reigns over and in me is Christ. All that happens to me is because He wills it to show His life and glory in me. That is the best for me as well and is true blessedness.