Blessed Are the Poor...

It's going to be a very slow process, but I am continuing to pick through the red letter teachings of Jesus. I can already foresee that in many places I will have to ruminate line by line in an attempt to grasp even a small portion of the feast He has invited each one of us to enjoy.

Today, is one of those days as I found myself unable to get beyond one verse, Matthew 5:3. This begins the portion of Scripture we call The Sermon on the Mount and encompasses chapters 5 through 7 of the first Gospel of the New Testament. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God." (NASB)

What struck me initially, was that I knew this verse and could have quoted it to you verbatim, but the words "in spirit" had never impacted me before today. I have immersed myself in the book of James for so long that I have been putting more emphasis on the word poor and completely neglecting "the spirit". James tells us we should never dishonor the Poor and that God specifically chose the Poor to be rich in faith and heirs to the kingdom He has promised them. (see James 2)

So there I was asking the question for the first time: What does it mean to be poor in spirit? Do you think that it's pure coincidence that when I asked What IF He REALLY Meant It? I posed the additional question:   "But when you live among people that may not be experiencing as much financial poverty as they are deep poverty of the soul...how do I speak into their lives the Love of Jesus?" To me, this is not coincidence.

Sorting through the question, I looked up numerous references that reiterate how and whom will "inherit the kingdom". (Matthew 5:10; 19:14; 25:34; Mark 10:14; Luke 6:20; 22:29) and a recurring theme seems to be utter dependence on God...like a child or because you are persecuted. When I looked up the word poor, the definition that applies the most to me is "deficient or lacking in something specified". Spirit is described as my "conscious, incorporeal being" or the "vital principle in humans" that animates the body or "mediates between body and soul".

Even with all of this, I was still chewing.

What I realized I was stumbling over was one word...the one that starts each of the nine sentences from verses 3 and 11...blessed. Why am I blessed if I am deficient in the vital conscious being that defines and animates who I am? Perhaps, when I'm at the end of myself...I am ready to see, feel, taste and experience Who He is and what His kingdom contains...utter, complete, boundless dependence on Him and His Love.

Wow...that would be great! But then the next question that immediately comes stampeding on the heels of the first is: I'm pretty sure given the lavish Love of Jesus, He never intended for this blessing to be a one-time-deal. So how do I live in such a way that I am always poor in spirit?

There's the crux of it for me. I am being asked to always live at the end of my ability...the end of who I am and what I am able to do. That's a call for me to live in such a way that (as Frances Chan says) "If God doesn't come through, I'm screwed." It is radically living sacrificially and without reserve so that who I am and what I am able to do can only be explained by a supernatural God, the Love of His Son and the Spirit that empowers us beyond our limits. It is a call to be a Red Letter Radical!