Matthew 5:7-10
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are the pure in heart: (partial review from last Vida)
Katharos is the word for pure, meaning to be unsoiled, unspoiled, unmixed, or unalloyed. If we make application to ourselves the definition would be to be wholly God’s, unreserveably His, or for God alone. God through the process of sanctification, “be being set apart,” causes this to happen via our trials and hardships as discussed in the prior Vida. Happiness outside of Christ is short lived and the effort to attain it is great and the pay back is based on diminishing return. The flesh and its desires are like a bad investment, you continually need to put more in to get the same return. And it is through this intense struggle that katharos takes place. We no longer seek the governance of the flesh and its failing promises, as piece by piece as in a very complex puzzle each part of us is being sanctified. Our attitudes and desires that are not honoring to the Lord are replaced by ones that are. The mural of His image is being formed in us till the lyrics of this song, “it’s YOUR breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise to you only…” becomes to encapsulate and define our life.
To mature to the point that we are completely His without reservation requires time. There are no short cuts to spiritual maturity. In Biblical times a Hebrew slave had seven years he had to serve his master, afterwards he was free to go. However, if he prospered under his master and loved his master and did not want to leave, then the master would take his servant to a door post and with an awl punch a hole in his ear lobe indicating the servant’s choice to become a bond slave. Paul calls himself the bond slave of the Lord and Christ seeks bond slaves. Yet as a bond slave you have earned the trust of the master and a great freedom to go in and out as needed and the blessings of the master, his goodness, his kindness and his prosperity become part of your life. There is no longer any question of your loyalty and with that the sense of servanthood all but disappears. Those of us who have committed ourselves to Christ understand this and there is no longer a question of our allegiance to Him, nor the sense of obligation, our only goal is to grow our faith and help others do the same.
“….for they shall see God.” Think of the one thing you would give all to have or experience – dream big, and it still would not even come close to seeing The Lord. This alone is reward enough. How unsettling it must be to not be sure of what happens to you after death. People will say “I hope I’m going to Heaven,” or “I think I’ve lived an good life, or God should accept me.” To not have that certainty, especially as one nears the end of their life has got to be concerning. Never having experienced death I asked myself the question, in what lies my certainity. How do I know that eternity awaits me? If a dear friend makes a promise not once, not twice, but countless times and each and every time he keeps his promise, do I need to see the home he has prepared for me to believe him? The integrity of his life is good enough for me. With just the promise of Heaven alone I will die a very happy man, but He has given us so much more. His daily presence is reason enough to get out of bed each day. And the fact that He not only hears our prayers but answers them according to His will gives us the assurance that He is guiding our life and will be with us through the times our life becomes stormy. We can build our life on His promises and go through whatever struggles knowing that He is faithful. The concerns of the “sheep become those of the shepherd,” a saying I heard that sums it all up.
Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
Whenever we hear the word peace we often think of the absence of war. However in a different context peace can have another meaning. For example, in a Zen setting we would define the word as tranquil or restful. However it has a much higher, more true meaning. The root of peace comes from the medical field of setting a broken bone, such as an arm or leg so it can mend and become one again. In application man has been “broken” from the original intend God had for him, to abide in communion with Him as is modeled in Gensis chapters 1- 3. This is our closest picture of God’s original intent and purpose for man. However man chose to listen to Satan and sin entered, and just like a fractured arm, the oneness of God with man was brokened. Man’s choice to disobey brought about the state of brokeness and all the ramifications and destruction that has occurred since. Therefore the highest peace and the most noble of all its definitions is when man becomes reunited once again with his God through faith in Christ Jesus. This is the absolute highest, truest, most supreme definition of the word. So blessed is the man or woman who finds this abiding peace and then after experiencing the same shares the good news with others, being a peacemaker, for truly they shall be cballed the “children of God.”
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. When our walk with Christ matures to a point that those who oppose the gospel persecute us we are taught to rejoice. Jesus said in Luke 6:22 , “Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.Rejoice ye in that day, and leap for joy: for, behold, your reward is great in heaven: for in the like manner did their fathers unto the prophets.” There are no “points,” for acting regliously weird. I see Christians acting in a way that is not becoming and consequently ridiculed by non believers. They rejoice and continue acting weird thinking that they are being persecuted for Christ. This is not persecution for Christ and all we are doing is giving the Lord a bad name. Does not scripture teach that we are to be “wise as serpents but innocence as doves?” We are to act in wisdom among the non believer, and if for those actions and speech that come because of our fear of God we are persecuted, then in that situation we are to rejoice. We have our Christian culture with our “Christianees” language, our Christian social clubs, with our Christian expressions etc., that really do nothing to further the Gospel. You may be persecuted for that, but that is not what Paul is saying.
It is when our every day life is of such a holiness that the non believer is either drawn to Christ or convicted by Him that “persecution” could be experienced. In those situations we are to rejoice. Therefore as a believer persecution should not be viewed as something strange but more the norm. At the very least we should not fit in, there should always be some uncomfortability with our presence among our secular friends. If they invite us to every party, or include us to all their activities because we are cool, something is very wrong. Light chases away darkness, so if darkness is comfortable around us then what kind of light are we exhibiting? We must be separate from the world, though we are to demonstrate love and patience towards it.
Paul in 2 Timothy 2:25 sheds a little different light on persecution…
“And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient,
In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;
And that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him at his will.”
Very interesting wording especially ” oppose” and ” recover.” Webster defines oppose as “actively resist or refuse, disapprove of and attempt to prevent, especially by argument” and recover in the Greek is ananepho. It is a compound word between ana meaning again and nephron to be sober. So combining the two words we get “To awake out of a drunken sleep and become sober.” Also this word may refer to a practice in which sowers scattered seeds impregnated with drugs intended to put birds to sleep that a net might be drawn over them to capture them,” and such does the enemy do to us, the nets of materialism, lust, power/ prestige or just being busy dull our senses from realizing our need for Christ. It can be a dangerous game we play when only in a crisis we realize that we have played the fool by seeking the things of the world at the expense of our relationship to Christ.
There’s much more to discuss with this verse that we will cover next time.
Father God,
Forgive us for seeking the immediate, the visible, instantly gratifying and not being willing to count or weigh the cost of Truth. For to live for Truth it will cost me everything in this life. It will cost me my per suit of fame, wealth, the false sense of security that pursuing materialism gives. It will cost me everything that this world wants to give me so as not to pursue You. Yet when my eyes finally close they will open to riches beyond and joy unspeakable, the greatest being Your Presence. Nothing of this world’s wealth could even remotely compare to that. Help us to truly be wise and willing to count the cost. Thank You and Amen.
Move Forward in His Grace – Arthur
Arthur Navarrette