I’ve recently been reflecting on the myriad of experiences and teachings through life, especially the spiritual moments that have deeply impacted me. Maybe it’s because next month I hit the big 70 in earth years and I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, but it seems a gift of age to be able to reflect and see His nature and character displayed throughout my life. My conversion at age 4, the call to missions at age 11, His miraculous protection in the head on car crash as I turned 26, and His continual grace and mercy through the joy as well as the sorrow of life. I personally am still a lover of Him and His names. As I’ve shared with you before, reflecting and speaking His names has brought me great comfort as well as strengthened me through many trials; choosing to focus on His character and nature. But the Beatitudes have been a pivotal marker, like referencing a road map to help me in life’s journey. I’ve shared before the guidance and wisdom contained in Jesus’ message, and I find myself here once again in 2020 reading and reflecting as well as documenting my “travels” as we enter this new year and decade. I know this post is long, but if there is one thing I would desire to leave with you, it would be this. Maybe you would like to take a “short” ride with me as we re-read the encouragement and guidance from Jesus, as He show us the way to surrender in His skillful work of transformation.
The Beatitudes in Matthew 5:3-12, known as The Sermon on the Mount, are a road map that helps us to identify where we are in our journey of transformation. When we accept Jesus to live within us, we begin a covenant journey of God exchanging our nature for His nature. As we surrender to God, we enter a progressive process where He desires to take all of who we are and He gives us all of Him. I was astonished when I first comprehended the revelation of covenant with Jesus. He begins to exchange our character for His character; our nature and integrity for His nature and integrity. God’s goal is to make us look more like Him. This is a process often takes us by surprise, with twists and turns, shock and even pain. When the winds of adversity blow, the enemy is often the source of our challenges and trials; but in those hard places God gives us an opportunity to be changed and conformed to His image, to be blessed, enlarged and satisfied.
The life of Jesus is a prophetic image of the Beatitudes. He shared this poignant and sobering sermon and then He walked through every verse to show us the way to God’s kingdom. His message encourages us that we are blessed on “account of Him” (vs. 11). Blessed (makarioi) is to be characterized by the quality of God. In other words, when God dwells within us with His nature, we are able to experience His kingdom and so we are blessed. Blessed also means to be fully satisfied; not due to any reward or fulfillment we experience, but we are satisfied because Jesus lives within us. We learn to walk through adversity and trials basically satisfied because we know that Christ dwells within us.
As challenging trials and testing have occurred, it has been comforting for me to head to the Beatitudes, where I have become aware of the surgery Holy Spirit was performing on me in my exchange process. When we can see how God is working to bless us in our circumstances and mature us into His image, peace is restored. This process of covenant exchange is a divine work orchestrated by Holy Spirit.
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,(Matt. 5:3):
One of the first stops we will encounter on our transforming journey is to recognize how spiritually helpless we are without God. When we understand that we are unable to make anything of ourselves, we then become blessed or fully satisfied. Jesus shared that he only did what he saw the Father doing. Jesus was saying “You are fully satisfied when you realize your spiritual helplessness, and that you can not make more out of yourself.” We gain new depth and revelation into Jesus as the captain of our salvation, as well as God’s amazing grace and mercy.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted. (vs. 4):
In Gethsemane, Jesus mourned, identifying with our hopelessness and our helplessness. He showed us how to surrender to God, when we recognize that we can’t make any more of ourselves. Mourn (hoi penthountes) is the sorrow we experience from our sin and the sins of others. We become faced with our own humanity. When we begin to see and mourn our hopelessness and the futility in trying to change ourselves, we then become blessed, and God comforts and encourages us. The kingdom becomes manifest, and we become satisfied. His great love and comfort becomes tangible to us. We begin to marvel at His extravagant and amazing love that turns our mourning into dancing.
Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth, (vs. 5):
As we experience situations where we are humbled or made meek, we learn to yield to God. Meekness can be defined as “accepting God’s dealings with us as ‘good,’ without disputing, contending or resisting.” Throughout scriptures Jesus experienced persecution, betrayal, rejection, abuse, slander and great humiliation. He became a living model of the character of meekness and humility that God desires to impart to us. Jesus continually surrendered himself to God’s will. When we learn to accept God’s dealings with us without anger or contentiousness, God is able to bless and enlarge us. He gives us strength as He releases His healing virtue to overcome pain in our soul and teaches us humility.
Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. (vs6):
When we hunger and thirst after God, we are famished and in need of constant refueling with the righteousness and essence of God. We choose to surrender to His laws and commands; we conform to His desires and will, and then He fills us and satisfies us. We become content, peaceful and filled. Jesus always revealed God’s righteousness. He became the image on earth of the nature and character of God.
Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy. (vs. 7):
We will experience situations when we will be challenged to extend mercy. Mercy involves thought and action. God is the one who gives strength for grace as He requests that we extend mercy to avoid sin. Jesus exhibited active compassion when He saved the woman’s life by asking “Who has not sinned-throw the first stone.” He moved with compassion and healed many. He demonstrated for us how to pardon other’s by God’s grace. So when we find ourselves in a circumstance to choose revenge or to extend mercy; we become blessed when we choose mercy and obtain God’s mercy for ourselves. We learn the importance of forgiveness and how to love our enemies and to pray for those who have persecuted us. We begin to see God’s creation through His eyes and His love.
Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God. (vs.8)
Becoming pure in heart is a process of purification or continual cleansing. This process by Holy Spirit frees us from negative things residing in our heart, our thoughts, emotions and paradigms. As we begin to surrender to His covenant exchange, we are blessed and are able to behold God with clearer vision. We are able to gaze upon His beauty with greater clarity. The blood of Christ becomes more real to us as He enlarges our understanding of His cleansing blood that purifies us. Our past, no longer defines us and we begin to see ourselves as His beloved. He takes our old heart; He purifies it (katharos) and cleanses it from the toxins of sin and guilt.
Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God. (vs. 9)
We do not become blessed simply by making peace between two parties. Peacemaker in this context is one who is able to make peace in others, because he has first received the peace of God in his own heart. So we are fully satisfied and blessed as we receive His love and covenant of peace. We begin to understand the Cross as we identify with the violence Christ suffered. We see clearly how His suffering canceled the enemy’s power forever. We begin to experience God’s peace and are then prepared to extend it to others.
Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven (vs.10) Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me. (vs.11); rejoice and be glad for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you (vs.12)
As we begin to walk in God’s righteousness or His revealed will; false accusations, rejection, reproach, defamation and taunting will occur. We begin to identify with Christ’s sufferings, the rejection, betrayal and false accusations He endured. God’s kingdom becomes more manifest in us as we begin to respond with His nature, extending love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness instead of our old nature of disappointment, bitterness, anger or revenge.
His kingdom emerges from within us and we become carriers of His love and presence. We begin to experience the life of His Spirit. We grow in His grace, wisdom, power and might. We see and hear more clearly into the heavenly realm, as we begin to experience our rewards (misthos) here on earth as well as those being established in heaven. The eyes of our understanding open to greater depth and revelation of His kingdom and life.
God’s covenant exchange is a life time process. We may walk through the Beatitudes cyclically as God deals with us. First, we are faced with a challenge we cannot change. We begin to understand we are unable to make anything out of ourselves. We then begin to mourn, because we see our sin and helplessness. We become humbled in our weakness and begin to hunger for His righteousness and revealed will, knowing He is the only one who can save us. We gain insight of His grace and begin to develop mercy that we choose to extend to others making us more Christ-like. Our heart becomes purified in this situation. We obtain His peace and are then able to share that peace with others. We learn to bless, forgive, encourage and love as we face persecution; and we receive more of the nature of God and His kingdom expands. New challenges present themselves and we begin the journey again.
As we live out our daily experiences, Holy Spirit is working to change us more into Christ’s likeness. When challenges try to overtake us, we can learn to rest in His love being assured that all is well. God has given us a road map to identify the points of our transformation process. And as we travel with Him on this amazing and progressive journey; He will continue to exchange His nature with us, establishing His kingdom and covenant.
In His love -
