The blog is back!
Sorry for the long absence. I’ll try and be far more disciplined in future. I’ll seek to upload each week at least two articles. One being on the current week’s Fighter Verse and the other on the week.
So…for the Fighter Verse this week –
Matthew 5:3-6 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.5 “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
What wonderful verses these are if rightly understood. The great challenge is, of course, to rightly understand them!
So many know of the Beatitudes, so many can even quote from them (more or less), but many have no idea what they actually mean.
The problem is, of course, that they contain such expressions as “poor” & “meek”. They speak of things that we can easily (and totally wrongly) identify – “hunger”, “thirst”, “mourn”.
So firstly – “Blessed” means….HAPPY! It really does – what God is saying is that you should be happy if these things are true for you, for He is giving some absolutely awesome promises to you!
So let’s summarise what they are actually teaching lest we learn them in vain!
v3 “the poor in spirit” simply means those who recognise their own need of God’s help – they recognise before God the poverty of their own spirituality.
v4 “those who mourn” does NOT refer to those who are sad over the death of a loved one, but rather those who are heartbroken over their own sin and failings.
v5 “the meek” – those who are gentle, who are humble and don’t think too highly of themselves, who accept whatever God brings, and want to learn from Him, from His Word, and from their brothers and sisters in Christ.
v6 “hunger and thirst for righteousness” – those who, recognising their own spiritual bankruptcy, and mourning over their sin, long that God should declare them righteous in His sight – that He should impute righteousness to them, and then that they should pursue righteousness in their lives through obedience to His Word, in dependance upon Holy Spirit.
So as we learn these verses together, don’t get so focused on learning the words that you fail to delight in the truth that those words declare!
Happy indeed should you be if these verses describe you!