spirituality

Last Thoughts on the Beatitudes

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Obviously, I’ve had the Beatitudes on my mind for some time now, having blogged on each one individually for the past several days. The question that remains is how do they all fit together. And what is the purpose? Ok, so I lied about only having one question. Sue me.

How do they fit together? It seems like they are all describing one person. A believer.

What is the purpose? If it’s a to-do list, I’m sunk. I can never make myself be poor in spirit or meek or any other of these things. The same goes if it’s a list of to-be’s, as in you should be all these things if you are a believer. Then what? I heard someone say that the Beatitudes are what it looks like when the Kingdom of God breaks through in a person. When God’s reign is manifested in an individual.

Well, then. How can we seek for a Kingdom breakthrough? By seeking the Kingdom. “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33). And the Kingdom is nothing more than God Himself, God ruling over His creation. So seek God first, and everything else will fall into place. Make Jesus your first– your only priority– and you will have found your purpose.

Again, I like how the Message puts it: “Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don’t worry about missing out. You’ll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.” Steep your life in God. Let every part of your life be filled with every part of God. Let every thought, breath, word and action be a living prayer to Jesus. Live with open hands and open minds toward all that God has for you.

Jesus, be thou my vision, as the old hymn says. So fill me with Your Spirit that all I see is You and how You are working in the world. So inhabit my senses that my heart breaks with what breaks Your heart. So enrapture me with Your love that everything else fades away.

Amen.

Blessed are you when people insult you

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“Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).

In all honesty, I don’t really like these two verses. I would much rather Jesus have said something like, “Blessed are you when people compliment you, flatter you, and tell you what great blogs you write and how spiritual you are.” I am not much for being insulted or persecuted or slandered. Probably not many people are. In fact, I would go so far as to say no one apart from the indwelling Spirit of God would count being insulted as a blessing. No one.

But if I am not ashamed of the gospel and proclaim it as the very power of God unleashed in the world, then I will face all these things. If I stand up and say that Jesus is the ONLY way, the ONLY truth and the ONLY life, I will be mocked, ridiculed, called all sorts of names, and ostracized. The sad part is that if I truly am radical about my faith, I will be insulted and persecuted and slandered by those in the Church who go by the name Christian.

I love the Message version: “Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don’t like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.”

When the truth is too close for comfort, people get uncomfortable. They react. Whether they are openly opposed to God or just those who want heaven, but not Jesus, they will lash out when someone threatens their pseudo-security. God also responds; God knows what you have done and will reward you. I’ve said this before, but the best possible reward is not anything God gives you, but God Himself. He is our great Reward, our great Inheritance. I think Francis Chan said that the great news of the Gospel is that you get God. All of God.

Lord, I don’t want to be a Christian who gets along with everyone and never causes trouble or stirs up dissention. I want to be a fork in the road, so that when people come up to me, they must choose to go one way or another to get by me– either toward or away from Christ. Hide me behind the cross, so that if there be anything offensive about me, it would be what the Greeks saw as foolishness and the Jews saw as a stumbling block– namely, Christ crucified. Jesus, get me out of the way so that You can get in the way of every single person I meet.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Blessed are the pure in heart

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“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God” (Matthew 5:8).

Blessed are the pure in heart. You may be like me and think, “Well, that rules me out right there. I am not pure in heart. If you could only see inside my heart and see some of the addictions and lies and crap that I carry around, the last word you would use to describe my heart is ‘pure.'” I have good news for you. If you have trusted Christ for your salvation, He has cleansed your heart. God sees you now as if you had never sinned. You are pure in heart.

The Message puts it this way: “You’re blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.” That’s what being made righteous means– your inside world is put right with God. Then, instead of seeing fate and coincidence and random occurances in the outside world, you see God. You see His hand in everything.

Soren Kierkegaard said, “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” To stay pure in heart, it is important to not have divided priorities. Like loving God and money, or God and popularity, or God and success, or God and (you fill in the blanks). If anything competes with God for my attention, that thing must go, whether it be a possession or a relationship or a cherished dream. God is jealous and will not abide anything put alongside of Him as equal importance.

The good news is that the effort to have one focus is not a “strain and try harder”, but a “be filled with the Spirit and transformed by the renewing of your mind” event. Your and my job is to know God. To know what blesses and breaks His heart, to know what His will is for the world, and to know His Word so well that it becomes a part of you. Jesus said, “This is eternal life, that they know the Father and the One He has sent.”

Lord, I long to stay pure in heart and not wear myself out chasing in five different directions things that can only truly come from You. Be my passion, my heart’s overwhelming desire. Be so glorious in my sight that everything else fades away. Show me Your glory, and then I will be satisfied. Thank You that You have promised that one day I will see You clearly and love You perfectly.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Blessed are the meek

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“Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5).

To be meek is not to be a pushover. To be meek is to be strong, but under control. It’s strength with a purpose, focus and goal. Think of a bridled horse whose strength is harnessed for a race. John MacArthur states, “True meekness is power under control. We can see that in light of the different ways the Greek praos was used. Medicine taken in the proper dosage can be helpful, but an overdose may kill; a domesticated horse is useful but an undomesticated one is destructive; and a gentle breeze cools and soothes, but a hurricane kills.”

Again, I like the way The Message puts it: “You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are—no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought.” To have power under control is to be content. To not fight against God’s will, but instead fight against the things in your life that oppose God’s will. If you are not content with who you are, you will expend useless energy in striving to be someone you’re not and to meet the expectations you’ve projected onto others about yourself (which can’t be done. I know. I’ve tried)

The best example of meekness is Jesus in Philippians 2:5-11. He who was God and equal with God made himself nothing, becoming a slave. His strength was geared toward laying down His life for us on the cross. He had no other focus but doing the will of God.

John MacArthur writes that some of the ways that you know can know if you are meek are obedience to God’s word, becoming angry only when God is dishonored, making peace, gentle in how you teach others and– most importantly–receiving criticism in a loving spirit and loving those who are giving the criticism.

What is the result of meekness? We inheirit the earth. That means that we belong to the God who owns it all and has given us everything we need. It means that one day we will reign with Him (2 Timothy 2:12). The best part is still that we have God with us, for us, and in us. How could it possibly get any better than that?

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

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

To be poor in spirit is to acknowledge before God and others that you are spiritually bankrupt, that you have nothing of worth that you can bring to God or give to others. All you have is filthy rags, as Paul described human righteousness. You are admitting helplessness and insufficiency, which are very un-American concepts, but very biblical ones.

I like the way The Message puts this verse. “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”

To be at the end of your rope is to admit you have gotten yourself in a fix that you can’t get yourself out of. That you are hopelessly and gloriously confused and lost. That you need Someone to rescue you.

It also means that you aren’t in the Who’s Who of Christianity or in the Most Likely to Succeed in Spirituality. From a worldy perspective, you don’t count. But in God’s eyes, you are a treasure and a masterpiece. I like what Brennan Manning says about this verse:

“You poor, you nobodies, you of little account by the world’s standards, you are blessed. It is my Father’s good pleasure to give you a privileged place in the kingdom– not because you worked so hard, and not because you are saying all the right things or doing all the right things or becoming all the right things, but because my Father wants you.”

So if you feel like giving up or quitting, don’t. Remember that God loves you. He’s very fond of you and He will never give up on you. He has placed people in your life who are cheering you on and who will also never give up on you. Remember that the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to people like you. It is God’s good pleasure to give it to you.

And the best part about the Kingdom is that God comes with it. Better yet, the Kingdom of God is God Himself. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. It is the Holy Spirit power that raised Christ from the dead. And it’s yours.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

I want to be maladjusted

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I was thinking about a speech Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave where he stated that he was proud to be maladjusted to things like social injustice. I like that terminology. I am also proud to be maladjusted to this world that doesn’t work and to the church when there’s too much world and not enough Word.

I want to be maladjusted to superficial relationships and fair-weather friends and to me when I am both of these.

I want to be maladjusted to when the most exclusive social circles are in church settings.

I want to be maladjusted to inauthenticity in myself and others instead of compassionately bearing one another’s burdens.

I want to be maladjusted to looking out for my own interests as I walk right past the broken and hurting without even seeing them.

I want to be maladjusted to thinking that spiritual problems can have political answers.

I want to be maladjusted to giving God my leftovers and not laying down my life for the Kingdom of Christ.

I want to be maladjusted to a self-sufficient American Church who relies on their own talents, abilities and strategies and does not cry out to the Holy Spirit out of utter need and dependency.

I want to be maladjusted to commitment-phobic Christianity when other Christians around the world are willing to pay with their lives for the privilege of what we take for granted on a daily basis.

I want to be maladjusted to anything less than building-shaking, fire-falling, Spirit-drenched revival among God’s people.

I want to be maladjusted to this world and not try to fit in, but instead be like my Lord Jesus Christ.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

My prayer for tonight

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God, I don’t understand why things happen the way they do, but You do.

I don’t understand why I should be so blessed when all I seem to do is complain about what I lack, but You know why and love me anyway.

I don’t understand why people act the way they do, but You do and You call me to forgive them as You have forgiven them.

I don’t understand many times why I act the way I do, but You do and You forgive me.

I can’t fix my brokenness, but You can because You took it upon Yourself at Calvary.

I can’t mend broken relationships, but You can because You make all things new.

I can never be a man of God on my own, but in You I am one because You are in me.

I can never die to my way of doing things and say, Thy will be done,” but You did. And Your power and resurrected life are in me.

I can’t change the world or eradicate injustice, poverty, wrong and evil, but one day You will.

All the things I long to be in my best moments and all I ever dreamed I could be, You are.

To all that I have needed or will ever need, You say, “I AM!”

Thoughts on prayer and healing

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I was thinking today about Job’s situation and how it relates to mine (and possibly yours, too). In Job 42, God tells Job’s friends that they have slandered Job and misrepresented God. He tells them that Job will pray for them, and He will hear him and not deal with them as they deserve. Job prays for his friends, then God gives him back what he lost, doubled.

Job had to pray for those who wronged him before God restored him. Job had to forgive the ones who slandered him and his God. Is there some area of your life that needs healing and/or restoration? It could be that God is waiting for you to pray for the ones who hurt you in that area before he restores to you what you lost or heals you.

As much as I pray for God to forgive those who hurt me, that much will God forgive me (see the Lord’s prayer). As much as I pray for God to bless those who slander me, God will bless me. As much as I pray for the restoration and healing of those whose wounds I carry, God will restore and heal me.

This is me thinking out loud again. So take it for what it’s worth. As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.

A Question I Ask Myself A Lot Lately (One we should all ask at some point)

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My question came to me after I had been reading Forgotten God by Francis Chan.

How can I have the Holy Spirit inside me and have the power of the resurrection and have my life look just like the people around me who have no Holy Spirit? In essence, why can they not tell a difference? Why can’t I tell a difference?

My prayer is from Acts 4:13. May be so immersed in Christ and filled with the Spirit that those around me are astonished and can tell that I have been with Jesus. If I am gifted in every way, but do not have the earmarks of abiding in the presence of Jesus, what good is that? If I have all this education, but lack being filled with the Spirit, it is worth less than nothing.

My prayer goes like this: Lord Jesus, captivate my heart in such a way that I am drawn to You and others see Jesus in me and are drawn not to me, but to the Jesus in me. Make my life an epistle, a testimony of how good You are.

What I want (what we should all want)

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“Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished. And they recognized that they had been with Jesus” (Acts 4:13).

I don’t want people to know me for being smart or funny or clever or nice or gentle. I want people to see me and be astonished and say “That man has been with Jesus.” I hope that is your prayer, too. That outsiders will look at us and recognize Jesus in us, and see that we, like Moses, are radiant from having been face-to-face with the King of the Universe. Because when we have been with Jesus, we are never the same. We can never again settle. We are “ruined for the ordinary.”

Which brings up a convicting point for me. I NEED TO SPEND MORE TIME WITH JESUS. If I only give Him 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there, I doubt that people will know that I have been with Him. It’s got to be more. If I am to love with the love of Jesus and be His hands and feet to the world, I have to know His heart much more fully than I do now.

Here’s a question that nailed me today. If your witness for Christ was limited to your facebook posts and replies and comments, what kind of testimony would that be? Would it be the kind that would make people want to know Jesus more or would it drive people away? Would people think that we were different or would they think we are just like them and therefore they have no use for what we have to say about our faith.

If we have been with Jesus, our words will match our walk and what comes out of our lips (and from our keyboards) will match our lifestyle.

As always, I believe. Help my unbelief.