Archive for January 2014

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

2014-01-07 Beatitudes, Devotional with Hymn No comments

This is the third of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune.

Jesus’ first beatitude is this:

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:3, NASB)

God has decreed the well-being of those who are poor in spirit. His sovereign word says they will have abundant life, and that they will be “prosperous” and “successful” in an ultimate sense, beyond mere money. But what does it mean to be “poor in spirit”?

To be poor is to lack possessions. To be poor in regards to spirit is to have a spirit, or a heart, that lacks possessions; a spirit that does not “possess” or claim ownership of anything; a spirit with no wealth, no glory, no will or way or strength of its own.

Such a spirit is what we had in Eden before the fall. Then we were surrounded by God’s abundant gifts, but none of them had taken root in our hearts. We possessed nothing. We clung to nothing. We claimed ownership of nothing. God was all-in-all, and our spirits, hearts, and desires were reserved for Him.

When we are again poor in spirit, possessing nothing as our own, we are free to cling to God alone. When we do, we enjoy all things in Him. All He has, all He is, His entire Kingdom is ours, and we are entirely His.

Blessed indeed is such a person!

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Poor in Spirit
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

 

Blessed

2014-01-05 Beatitudes, Devotional with Hymn 5 comments

This is the second of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune.

Jesus spent His entire ministry here teaching and demonstrating a new relationship with our heavenly Father. Life could be full and complete by simply, actively trusting Him. These teachings are especially concentrated in Matthew, chapters 5, 6, and 7, the passage we call the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus begins His description of this new life by summarizing God’s recipe for success. This recipe is called the Beatitudes. Here He pronounces God’s blessing on eight character traits. He says that God has decreed the eternal well-being of people who possess these qualities.

But like much of the Sermon on the Mount, the list is surprising, even shocking. Human society tends to prize people who are strong, assertive, and confident, people who provide themselves and others with the physical goods, security, and pleasure.

Jesus’ recipe for success is completely different. Realize that only He has experienced both life on this earth and eternal life in heaven. Only He has a complete perspective on what is best. And He says that the person who is truly blessed by our Creator is poor in spirit, meek, merciful and pure in heart. That person mourns, desires righteousness above all else, makes peace, and gladly suffers persecution for obeying God.

What unexpected keys to success! None of these qualities are strength, skill, material goods, or human accomplishment. All these qualities flow naturally from trusting and loving God.

These traits come with wonderful promises from our Father. He has decreed that all who show these qualities will be blessed with the Kingdom of heaven, their Father’s rich comfort, rulership of the entire earth, a complete rightness to life, mercy from God, the promise of seeing Him, and the glorious reality of living as His dearly-loved children.

All these blessings concern our inner, eternal person. None are simply material. All will outlast this world. Jesus, the only person with a total view of all of life, urges us to seek these gifts as our Creator’s greatest blessings.

Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: Beatitudes Hymn
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics

 

Living in the Father’s Presence

2014-01-02 Beatitudes, Devotional with Hymn No comments

This is the first of an eleven-part series on the Beatitudes.
Each part features a hymn to a familiar tune. 

We are needy creatures living in a material world. We need food, shelter, and clothing. To meet these needs, we work, we worry, we gather and grasp. And if we get more than we need for today, we hungrily store it away for the future.

By nature, we are self-centered, driven by desires of which we are only vaguely aware. We long to wrap ourselves in pleasure and security and the admiration of others. We crave glory and gold.

And so it goes. We live, we long, we scramble, and we die, with our hearts entwined with the physical world around us.

But our Creator made us for better things. He made us to be like Himself, to share the endless abundance of all He is. He designed us for love…for eternity. But when we turned away from Him so long ago, we lost sight of our birthright and our destiny. We degenerated into the fearful, selfish creatures that we are.

But our Creator didn’t abandon us. He sent His own divine Son as a human being like us, to show us Who He is and who we can be. He came to renew us in the full image of our holy and loving Creator. He came to teach us that this Creator is our Father, and that He longs to be our Father in a deeper and more personal sense. He wants us to realize that He is always with us. His loving eye focuses always on us. He wraps our entire existence in Himself.

Jesus Christ came to teach us and show us what it means to live in the presence of this Father who is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving. He is already aware of our every need. And this Father requires of us only one thing: that we trust Him.

As we trust Him and live before Him, the logic of daily living is turned upside-down. With such a Father, trusting makes sense, not worry. Giving is logical, not grasping.  A close relationship with this Father is our highest good, our greatest security, and our deepest pleasure.

 Listen…and sing if you want:
Hymn: We Are Children
Recording
Printed Music & Lyrics 

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