Blessed are the poor in spirit
Blessed are the poor in spirit; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven....
Had a wonderful door open this morning in my devotions. Actually, this door was the opening of a safe of hidden treasures, and once the Holy Spirit opened the eyes of my heart, My spirit man leap like calves coming out of the stalls in Springtime.( Malachi 4:2 ).The reason why the poor in spirit are blessed and inherit the kingdom of heaven is because a poor man knows he's poor and needs help. A rich man needs nothing but demands everything. A poor man needs everything and demands nothing.
We can not approach God if we know we don't need him for anything. But if we know we need him so desperately as a poor man needs a loaf of bread, he will meet us and therefore take us in.The organized church "The Pharisees (of cultural Christiandom)"(taken from a quote from Tim Shey (High Plains Drifter; http://tim-shey.blogspot.com/2011/04/they-have-stretched-my-shredded-body-on.html) can try to identify or talk about being poor in spirit like a very rich man saying he can identify with the poor man with tongue in cheek while foreclosing on the poor man's mortgage. The Pharisees of cultural christiandom don't need anything but demand everything from religious compliance to the LAW to futile compliance with "church bilaws, rules, and MORES.
Oswald Chambers sums it up best here:"The teachings of the Sermon on the Mount produces a sense of despair in the natural man - exactly what Jesus means for it to do. As long as we have some self-righteous idea that we can carry out our Lord's teaching, God will allow us to continue until we expose our own ignorance by stumbling over some obstacle in our way. ONLY THEN are we willing to come to him as paupers and receive from Him. Blessed are the poor in spirit.' This is the first principle in the Kingdom of God. The underlying foundation of Jesus Christ's kingdom is poverty, not possessions; not making decisions for Jesus, but having a sense of such absolute futility that we finally admit, "Lord I cannot even begin to do this." Then Jesus say, "Blessed are you.... (5:11). This is the doorway to the kingdom, yet it takes us so long to believe we are actually poor. The knowledge of our own poverty is what brings us to the proper place where Jesus Christ accomplishes his work. " (Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest. July 21)
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