I have decided to do a multi-day reflection on Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. My Bible has divided Matthew chapters 5-7 into 19 passages. I am approaching some of those passages from the perspective of two words, “Am I?”
Yesterday, after reading the first two verses in Chapter 5, I asked myself “Am I teachable?” Those verses tell us simply that Jesus sat on the mountain with the crowds that followed Him and with His disciples and began to teach them.
He began with what we call the Beatitudes. [Read 5:3-12] These are the blessings. They set out to remind us that the blessings of God come from far different circumstances than the blessings of this world. They flow out of mourning, gentleness, hungering and thirsting for righteousness, mercy, purity of heart, peacemaking, and even persecution.
It is that first condition of blessing, however, that sets the precedent for all the others. “The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs.” [vs 3 HCSB]
Poor in spirit means to recognize that before God I have nothing to offer. I cannot save myself. I have nothing to barter with God. I cannot deliver myself. I cannot make myself worthy of the salvation that is offered to me freely in Christ. I can only be made worthy BY the salvation offered in Christ Jesus. I am spiritually poor. And not just poor, I am bankrupt.
“Am I poor in spirit?” As I contemplated that question, I admit my poverty is what brought me to Christ Jesus in 1973. It is why I surrendered my life to Him. But … and here is where the Holy Spirit took me today … “Am I still poor in spirit?” or have I allowed pride or arrogance to subtly creep in?
Do I see myself as “better” because I am saved? And how does the world see me? As arrogant, or humbly acknowledging that without God’s grace I would be utterly lost?
