The Poor in Spirit

The Poor in Spirit

by | Jan 14, 2021 | Uncategorized

Are you on Twitter or heard of #Healthyfaith Twitter chat?

You can find it when you click on Explore and enter #Healthyfaith.

The topics on #Healthyfaith vary from night to night, but each leader has a different topic for at least 8 weeks. Recently, on Thursday nights, we led our #Healthyfaith chat on the Beatitudes. For me, it was fun to gather research on Matthew 5:3-12 and come up with questions based on these scriptures.

Since the Twitter chat topic changed to the Names of God, I’d like to share what I’ve learned through my study of the Beatitudes over the next nine weeks on this blog.

I hope you find it encouraging, educating, and even life-changing.

Here we go!

Kingdom Building

And you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.

Revelation 5:10 ESV

Biology was and is my favorite subject. I loved learning about the different plants, animals, cells, and fungi in the world, especially how we as humans fit into it all. This world belongs to our Creator and everything in it He made it with a purpose—except mosquitos….I’m not sure of their purpose other than to feed bats and dragonflies…but that’s another subject.

As a biologist, I have taught many classes on the six different kingdoms of biology. Starting from the smallest single-cell kingdoms like Archaebacteria and Eubacteria up to the largest multi-celled kingdoms of plants and animals—from the mosquito to the Blue whale. These kingdoms represent every life form on this planet.

The largest is the animal kingdom, which includes humans.

Amongst all the kingdoms we learn about, the most important one we will ever know is God’s. He created His Kingdom, and appointed Jesus as King, to represent and usher all humans into it.

Because we can’t see this awesome place God has for us, many people decide to build their own out of their dissatisfaction.

One way the enemy entices us is through our profession. We may be a secular business, a Christian ministry, or even an author—trying to build a personal kingdom of followers to buy our products and embrace our vision. Our kingdom and brand adopt our name.

You are the customer. Everyone we know—from people we worship with to friends and family becomes potential clients and/or purchasers.

We become the king of our kingdom.

This is what others teach us to do.

Now, I’m not saying we are trying to usurp God’s Kingdom and authority. But, it is easy to get caught up in our own kingdom-building.

Even the Pharisees had problems with this. They weren’t all bad either. We see in Luke 17:20:

Being asked by the Pharisees when the kingdom of God would come, he answered them, “The kingdom of God is not coming in ways that can be observed, nor will they say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ for behold, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.

Luke 17:20

The Kingdom of Heaven

What does that mean?

One rabbi said, “When a person committed himself daily to love God with all of his heart, soul, mind, and strength, (by saying the Shema) he had “received upon himself the kingdom of heaven.” (https://engediresourcecenter.com/2019/09/04/what-is-the-kingdom-of-heaven/)

For us, the Kingdom of Heaven/God is in our hearts when we make the Lord- King of all we are and do. The Kingdom of Heaven lives in us!

For us, the Kingdom of Heaven is in our hearts when we make Jesus, King of all we are and do. #ThisSideofHeaven #BlessedarethePoorinSpirit

In Matthew 5, we learn what type of people make up His kingdom.

The Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

The phrase Blessed are translates from the Hebrew as O the blessedness of or The gladness of. This is not a condition of the person who is poor in spirit, but the reality of the person.

What does it mean to be poor in spirit?

The Hebrew term means to “crouch like a helpless beggar.” (https://www.hebrew4christians.com/Scripture/Brit_Chadashah/Beatitudes/beatitudes.html)

This represents a person in absolute need of God to take care of them. This is humility at its best.

A person who is poor in spirit is the opposite of worldly thinking—independent, proud, with an “I have it all-I need nothing” attitude.

Have you ever wondered why Jesus begins with the poor in spirit in the Beatitudes?

Without the knowledge and understanding that we are nothing more than helpless beggars, we will never be peacemakers, we will never mourn, never be humble, or hunger and thirst for His righteousness….get the picture?

But that is only in this world. In the Heavenly places, God will esteem the humble, poor in spirit, peacemakers, persecuted, and the compassionate. God loves these traits in us.

Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

James 4:10

O the gladness of being poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

Matt. 5:3

 It is a blessing as well as a state of gladness to recognize we are poor in spirit. We will have the Kingdom of Heaven living within us until the day Jesus takes us to Heaven to live with Him forever!

Hope

Hope

by | Feb 13, 2018 | Devotional

Life happens. We have all heard that phrase and have probably said it. I don’t believe in coincidences. Most things happen for a reason, like the people we meet, and others occur because we live in a fallen world where Satan has power, for now.

It is hard to understand why difficult or even horrible things transpire in our lives and why we lose those we love dearly. It takes time, the help of the Holy Spirit, and the love of others to get us through the challenges this life throws at us.

Through it all, we have a Father and Savior who stick by our side. Yeshua came to be Hope in our darkest most difficult times.

I have suffered the loss of loved ones like most of you. My father died 25 years ago. It was difficult, even though at that time, I knew it would happen soon. It took years before I could talk about him without tears.

I suffered a miscarriage of our first child too. We had tried for 3 years to get pregnant. Even though I knew it was a baby, it was easier to think of it as a bunch of cells, at first. Once I allowed reality to set in the pain was unbearable.

I was angry at God. I found it impossible to pray. Grief overwhelmed me.

But…

My God was with me. He allowed me to grieve.

Then He started to heal my pain.

He gave me HOPE. He reminded me that I did get pregnant. I was able to have a child. There would be other children.

A loss does not have to just be the death of someone we love but can take on many forms. It can be the end of a friendship, a dream, or the end of a marriage. Maybe you have lost your job or home.

The pain in our hearts can be excruciating, and you may feel like you will never recover. Still, there is hope!

Our family recently lost our beautiful, sweet, German shepherd. She was 7 years-old. We have had to put a couple of dogs down at the ripe old ages of 12 and 13. I still grieved their loss, but this time it was different. Olivia died when she fell through the ice on our pond and drowned. It was awful! We found her after getting home from a funeral of a family member. She was our family too.

Some may say she was just a dog, but she was my friend. While my children are moving out and going to college, that dog was like the child that never grew up.

The Lord was again with me in my grief.

He understands love.

He understands loss.

He never made light of my grief or my love for this dog. He was simply there.  After a couple of weeks, I felt the Holy Spirit say, “If you really believe that everything you have is mine then she was mine too.”

I am not sure why that gave me comfort, but it did.

I do believe that everything I have belongs to God. I know I can trust Him with everything I love, including my husband, children, family, friends, pets, and home. He is in control.

I know I will see my dad, my baby and others I have lost again in Heaven. I have hope Olivia will be there too. If not, I’m glad I had her here.