The Happiness of Desperate Need

     I'll be doing a series of talks on the Beatitudes at our Gloucester Chapel in the coming months, so rather than duplicate what I write at our church blog, I thought I'd share my thoughts with you on those talks. If you'd like to check out our Approaching Sunday blog, you can do that here. There are a number of very capable writers that contribute to that ministry along with me, so enjoy.

     "Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." These beatitudes sure are counter-cultural." Jesus starts at the bottom as He begins His Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. His plan to enjoy the blessing of God begins with the lowest rung on the ladder...poor in spirit.

     There are several aspects to the kind of "poor" that Jesus talks about here. Obviously it includes a lack of resources and a dependency that focuses on our need of someone else to help. But the idea goes further to describe someone who is "begging poor," experiencing an absolute sense of utter dependence. He specifies that it is a spiritual poverty he is referring to. 

     We don't like that. I don't like being dependent on others. I want to be able to care for myself and my family. Perhaps you've had times in your life when you were completely dependent on others to care for you. It's a struggle. When it comes to spiritual things. You can't even begin the climb toward blessing until you get to to the bottom of the ladder.

     The best way I can describe this is to look at an example in the Bible. The one that seems to most clearly distinguish the wrong attitude from the right is found in Luke 18 where Jesus tells us a parable about 2 people who went to the temple to pray. One was a highly respected religious leader. The other is not. They came before God with two very distinct attitudes which yielded two very distinct results.

     Jesus describes the first character in his story as a Pharisee who "trusted in himself that he was righteous." He stood off by himself and prayed "God, I thank you that I am not like other men; extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this...tax collector." I can imagine him looking over his shoulder at the poor shmuck back in the corner of the temple, isolated from everyone else. "I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get." The man was impressed with how well he was doing with all his "good things."

     Character #2 was a crook and everybody knew it. He was a Jewish sell-out to the Roman government as he not only collected taxes for them but then kept extra for himself. Nobody liked him. Nobody respected him. He stood off in the corner and wouldn't even lift up his eyes toward God. He simply cried out "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!"

     Here's the kicker. Jesus said that character #2 is the one who went back home justified, not the other guy.

     That's the main point of this first Beatitude. If we want to enjoy the blessing of God, we need to understand how desperately needy we are without Him. We can't do anything to get God's blessing. We have to receive it from Him and it starts with abject poverty of spirit. I don't deserve His blessing and I have no hope of getting it on my own. This not only applies to our first step in following after Jesus when we trust Him as our only hope of salvation but also in our day to day walk as we continue to live with the understanding that we are completely dependent on God to bless us and to give us the strength to follow after Him.

     Pretty cool, right? The key is not to figure out how to position ourselves for blessing and pray in the biggest thing we can think of. The key is simple. If I want to be under the spout where the blessing comes out, I have to stoop low in my spirit and acknowledge that I desperately need God.

     Counter-cultural? Obviously. Difficult to accomplish? Yeah...especially when I'm so naturally self-absorbed and self-reliant. But thankfully, it's actually simple. The way up...is down.