Poor in Spirit
Series – The Posture of Beatitude
You’ve caught a glimpse of Him and you find yourself curious. Wanting to know more about this mysterious teacher that walked the earth thousands of years ago, you begin to ask around. You desire to search the scriptures, but haven’t pondered the words from the ancient tomes forced on you by your parents in years. You open up the Bible only to find yourself overwhelmed as you look over the vast amounts of information at your fingertips. “Thousands of years of wisdom cannot be internalized within a life time,” you think to yourself, as the task looks more and more daunting. Every sign points to more of Jesus: every conversation heightens curiosity, every visit to church more frustrating than the last, every sermon reminding you that Jesus is awesome and you should really get to know Him…But how? Up to this point, your life has not revolved around Him – but it’s starting to feel like it should.
“…a person reading this that is not asking this questions of at least themselves, is going to have a hard time understanding the concept that is being considered.”
No matter the backstory, the question on our minds is; How? How do i get Jesus? How do i get more of Jesus? We do not care what we have to do, and least of all care ‘why’ it has to be done; so long as the reasoning is ‘to get closer to Jesus.’ And a person reading this that is not asking this questions of at least themselves, is going to have a hard time understanding the concept that is being considered.
There is unity among the different Bible translations as it pertains to this particular verse. The greek is translated pretty similarly as you look across the spectrum. From Literal translations, to those that prioritize readability, we find the same message; those that understand their spiritual poverty, will be blessed with the Kingdom of Heaven – it is theirs to have. The key phrase in this is the “kingdom of heaven.” This phrase is interchange with the ‘kingdom of God’, something that Jesus expressed to the pharisees as being inside of the believer. We see something like this happen on the day of pentecost, and in different accounts through the book of Acts when those that believed in Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit.
“A person that does not understand that they are lacking is not going to be seeking; and a person that is not seeking will not find; and that same person that does not seek, will not inherit eternal life”
So what we are understanding here is, that this verse is a reference to the Holy Spirit…precisely that. The kingdom of Heaven, come down to earth, to live inside of us – the spirit of the Living God. The earnest of our inheritance, the Spirit of adoption, the proof that one is a reborn child of the King…and herein lies the importance of understanding our spiritual poverty, because none of these things can be attributed to one who does not.
A person that does not understand that they are lacking is not going to be seeking; and a person that is not seeking will not find; and that same person that does not seek, will not inherit eternal life, because they would not have been born again. Seems harsh, but it is true! Your feeling of want is not irregular, and i would dare say that for humans, it is a default state of being. If we continue to fill that void with the things of this world, then we will never receive the Kingdom of Heaven – the salvation that has been promised to those who are poor in spirit.
Daily Reading
Psalm 51; 2 Corinthians 3:3-17; James 4:1-10; John 3:1-5; Ephesians 1:13-14; Romans 8:14-15