Blessed Experiences or Blessed Life?

Matthew 5:7 Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

God certainly knows what we need.  When I taught a study on fear many years ago, I discovered that God has provided enough verses on fear, that if we read one a day, it would take a whole year to read them all.  Recently, I discovered that the same is true about mercy.

Now, what is mercy?  Awhile back, I heard someone jokingly say about ladies of the Southern states, it doesn’t matter what you say to a person as long as you end with saying something like “Well, bless your heart”.  Sometimes, we view that statement as an expression of one who has mercy – someone who sort of feels our pain.  Just as God does not express mercy that way, He expects something different from us.

Biblical mercy is different from secular mercy in at least three ways.

1. It is primarily a compassion or a pity towards someone who is suffering as a consequence of sin.  But, I’ve got to add here – isn’t that what all suffering is about?  It’s the result of either our sin or someone else’s sin at some time, even if we go all the way back to Adam and Eve.

2.  Secondly, Biblical mercy does not just feel compassion or pity; Biblical mercy involves both thought and action. It is a seeking to, in some way, relieve a person of their pain.

Psalm 37:21 … the righteous shows mercy and gives.

3.  Thirdly, Biblical mercy is not the expression of acts of mercifulness, but it is having this attribute as a result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  In other words, Biblical mercy is not a compassion or pity motivated by the flesh, but by the Spirit and is a response to His prompting. Psalm 62:12  …to You, O Lord, belongs mercy;…

So, again, we can’t conjure up this mercy – it’s got to be a response to the Holy Spirit’s prompting and only kingdom livers get that.  Let me pause here to remind you of this side effect of this Sermon – the assurance it gives us if we are believers – when we see these things evident in our lives, it’s assurance that we belong to God’s kingdom. 

It’s not that these beatitudes are foreign or unfamiliar to us, if we are believers, we have experienced all of them, and thus, we have blessed experiences – Jesus is calling us to blessed lives. 

What changes occurred in your life that brought you to hunger and thirst after a blessed life rather than settling for blessed experiences?

Righteousness - A Devotion to the Sinless One

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst 

after righteousness, 

for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Here’s a good description of those who do not hunger and thirst after righteousness:

Jeremiah 2:13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters,    And hewn themselves cisterns--broken cisterns that can hold no water.

Remember what Jesus cried out in John 7:37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

Verse 39 tells us He was speaking of the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.

So, the opposite of hungering and thirsting after righteousness is not looking to God for what we need and looking to other sources – which can’t hold water – which leak.  Our souls were made to hold the Holy Spirit, not anything else.

Remember my secular dictionary’s definition of righteousness? – a devotion to a sinless life.  As I said, that’s a good Pharisee definition.  But, that’s not good enough – Jesus said so in Matthew 5:20 For I say to you, that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.

Then Jesus goes on after that statement to give us examples of God’s expectation of righteousness, that includes not just our actions but our thought life. Seems like any sane person would declare after that – why try?  Who then can be righteous?  The disciples asked that question once – Who then can be saved?  Jesus’ answer?  With man it is impossible, but with God all things are possible. So, somehow, righteousness is possible even though this perfection that Jesus teaches, that could be construed as righteousness, is not.

Can’t do it.  Can’t be it – but we are to hunger and thirst for it. 

Righteousness is the recognition and acceptance of God's claim upon man. God’s claim is that He is holy and has the right to demand adherence to His standards.  Now, those who do not believe, look to themselves, to their own righteousness to meet God’s standards.  Those who believe, look to Jesus to meet those standards for them.  The result of that is the placing of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to work in us and through us that righteousness that only He can do. We (you and I) control how much of that righteousness we have.  As the saying goes, you have just as much of God as you want to have.  He has not chosen to take that control; He has chosen to give that control to us.

Here, in this one verse in Matthew 5, we have a guarantee of satisfaction.  A guarantee.  If you want to be soul satisfied.  Not soul thirsty?  I’ve got an answer for you – expose yourself to the things that feed the soul rather than the things that feed the flesh.  Sometimes we can be so busy and tied up in the business of a day, in the demands of the flesh, that our souls become so starved we don’t even recognize our soul hunger anymore.  That’s what happens when someone fasts – starves their body to the point that they no longer hunger.

Feed your soul again and you will have that hunger – and somehow hungering after righteousness, God’s work in and through your life, makes you more hungry, but the hungrier you get, the more filled you are.  I can’t explain that one – But, God has proved it to be true. 

Righteousness is not devotion to a sinless life; it is devotion to the sinless One – Jesus.

What Hunger Has Your Attention?

 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, 

for they shall be filled. Matthew 5:6

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. The first three beatitudes flow into this one and the last beatitudes flow out of it.  Where there is a sense of poverty of spirit, we will mourn over our sin which results in meekness.  With that our hearts recognize our need for and cry out for righteousness.  Living in that righteousness, produces a merciful person, who is pure in heart, a peacemaker who lives a life that will provoke persecution.

What does my secular dictionary say?  Righteousness is devotion to a sinless life.  Must have been written by a Pharisee.  I’ll explain that statement tomorrow.

I don’t think we have to spend much time trying to figure out what hungering and thirsting is – although we probably don’t understand the words like those in third world countries do.  We know it enough.  What we don’t know is that hopeless feeling of hunger or thirst – not knowing you will soon find the means to satisfy the need.  And we don’t need to be able to identify with that feeling, because of the very promise to those who have this kind of hunger and thirst that is for righteousness – They shall be filled.  Although, I want to point out one thing that I think is important.  Most commonly when hunger or thirst or wanting something is expressed, this Greek word is used that in translating it would include the word of – literally, it would be, I am hungry for “of” food meaning “out of all the available food, I want some of it”.  This hungering is one that is saying – I want all I can get; I long for complete righteousness.  If God’s got the whole pizza for me, a piece of it just isn’t going to satisfy me – I want it all.  And wonderfully, we have the same sense in the word filled – complete filling or will be completely satisfied.

 

It’s what David meant when he said I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness (Psalm 17:15).  That’s total satisfaction. As long as I am living on this earth, I want as much of that as I can possibly have.

I love this quote:  To be hungry is not enough.  I must be starving to know what is in His heart toward me.  When the prodigal son was hungry, he went to feed on the husks.  But when he was starving he went to his father. 

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness know this truth:  Luke 1:53  He has filled the hungry with good things,  And the rich He has sent away empty.

Now, when I used the example of the whole pizza, I would guess that some of you might have thought, no thanks – that’s too much of a good thing – a couple of pieces is more than sufficient.  Well, with pizza – that might very well be true.  But, all too often that is the position of many believers.  They have all of God that they want.  More of Him is not what they long for or hunger and thirst for.  But, keep this in mind – we all have a pizza size God hole in us and if we don’t fill it with Him, we will fill it with something else.  The one Jesus is speaking of here – knows what she needs to fill her hole with and wants nothing else.

We are body and spirit.  They oppose one another.  Yesterday we looked at this verse.  Let’s look at it again.  Galatians 5:17 For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

The flesh and the spirit hunger and thirst for entirely different things.  I have a disease in my esophagus.  My gastroenterologist asked me what helped.  I said ice cream.  So, you know what he wrote on my chart – eat ice cream.  Now, at first I thought I couldn’t ask for a better recommendation – permission to eat ice cream.  My flesh absolutely loved that doctor.  Because my flesh is very conscious of short term pain and short term satisfaction.  Long term, it’s not interested in.  But, I know enough that if I heed my doctor’s instructions very often, I will suffer greatly long-term.  The body is so aware of its short term needs (or really, desires) and cries out to us to meet them – and it seems to be unaware or at least silent to our long-term needs.  Our spirit is not.  Our spirit knows that when it seeks long term needs, it’s short term needs are also satisfied.

The blessed one has figured something out – she has figured out what really satisfies.   And what satisfies is righteousness.  Now, that makes understanding righteousness very important. We’ll look at that tomorrow.

For now, check your hunger scale.  Your mind hungers; your body hungers; your emotions hunger; and your spirit hungers – every single day.  Which one gets priority?  Consider the first three.  When you give them the attention they cry out for and ignore/deny the cries of your spirit, what have you found to be the result?

I Hope You Dance

This is an add on to today's blog.  I think it's a good transition for us in our journey from meekness to hungering and thirsting after righteousness.  I have posted another gadget - last one on the right - I Hope You Dance (I've added the important part - For Jesus, as we really can't enjoy dancing without Him).  It's a secular song, but it very closely says what has been on my heart for us - that we discover the joy in obeying the nudges; that we discover that dancing for Jesus is a whole lot better than "sitting it out".

Who Has Your Reigns?

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek,

For they shall inherit the earth.

Who has your reigns?  Who has the control of your life?  If one of the definitions of meekness is “power under control”, then who has the control of your life? Or – Who has your reigns? We might be tempted to say “how you answer that question will determine whether you are meek or not”.  But, really, how we live out the answer to that question will determine whether we are meek or not.

We have been misled to believe that the shy ones are meek; that the non-assertive ones are meek.  But, again, such is not necessarily the case.  Often shyness is a result of refusing to yield to God’s pull on our reigns. 

Consider Galatians 5:16-17   I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. [17] For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.

 If we are yielding to God’s pull on our reigns, we will be walking in the Spirit.  If we are walking in the Spirit, we will not be yielding to the pull of our flesh.  Now, the challenge for today is this:  When God prompts you to do something, or say something, that might be embarrassing, that might cause people to look at you, that might be rejected or ill-received, who’s got your reigns?

I find that the Holy Spirit rarely pulls up tightly on my reigns, for then I would not have freedom of choice.  Rather, He gently nudges and it’s up to me whether I respond to those nudges or not.  You and I are all too familiar with the feeling we get when we deny those nudges. .    Look at the last phrase of Galatians 5:17, the result of yielding to the flesh: you do not do the things that you wish. Are you tired of choosing safety above the work of the Holy Spirit? 

Blessed are the meek.  When, in meekness, we give the reigns of our life to God, He becomes our guide. We can either obey the nudges, or deny them and do nothing – and get that awful feeling inside that we chose the way of the coward.  Blessed and led OR sorry and “safe”.  Which will it be?

Yielding to God's nudges is a glorious,liberating way to live!


By the way - I am absolutely loving the comments you are posting.  Keep up the blessings!

Delighting in the Abundance of Peace

Matthew 5:5 Blessed are the meek

for they shall inherit the earth

Let’s consider what Psalm 37 teaches us about meekness. Look at Psalm 37:11.  But the meek shall inherit the earth, and shall delight themselves in the abundance of peace.

First of all, we can see that, unlike a lot of what Jesus taught in the Sermon on the Mount, this is not new news.  The meek shall inherit the earth.  Hearing Him make that statement, should have triggered their minds back to this psalm – to the additional promise of abundance of peace and a further explanation of what this meekness is.  Notice also, that verse 9 tells us something else about those who inherit the earth – those who wait on the Lord.  It appears that this Psalm is linking the two – the meek are those who wait on the Lord.

Let’s just look at verses 5 and 7 of this psalm and see what these people are like:

1.  (5, verse 3 says it too) Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the Lord. Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. They trust in God. The meek begin by trusting God.  They believe that He will work for them and vindicate them when others oppose them.  Biblical meekness is rooted in a confidence that God is for you and not against you and He will take care of you and be your defender.

2.  Again, from verse 5 – They commit their way to God.  The Hebrew word for commit means literally “to roll”.  The meek have discovered that God is trustworthy, and so they roll their way (the things of their lives) onto the Lord.  I love just picturing that.  We tend to picture God as being up – rightfully so – He’s in heaven.  So, when I first thought of rolling something onto God, I thought of rolling it uphill.  Isn’t that so like us?  We think that committing something or someone to the Lord is like pushing this burden up a hill and all too often we lose strength and it rolls right back on us.  How much better, to picture, pushing our burdens over a cliff to the Lord.

3.  Psalm 37:7 Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him;   Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way,  Because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.

They rest in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.  Resting here is stand still.  They don’t give the Lord advice, they don’t move out ahead of Him; they don’t react.  Moses stood still and let God deal with his challenging siblings.  Not that they are lazy, but the meek have a steady quietness about their lives in the midst of upheaval.

4.  Still in verse 7 They don’t fret over the wicked.  And notice this about the wicked – who prospers in his way.  The meek don’t fret – even when it looks like the wicked are prospering, doing well, and not paying for what they have done or even are continuing to do.

From Psalm 37, we can see that the meek begin by trusting God, which leads to committing their way to God.  Or – we can see that it begins with committing our way and that leads to trusting Him – trusting Him more, as we discover His faithfulness.  The meek commit their way to the Lord believing, trusting He will use his power and mercy to do good for us.  Then they wait patiently and quietly for the outcome, not giving way to anger or fretfulness when the outcome they desire is not happening.

As you scan Psalm 37, share about a verse that speaks to you or ministers to you.  There are many!

Two Examples of Meekness

Matthew 5:5  Blessed are the meek,

For they shall inherit the earth.

   

We have two men in the Bible that were specifically referred to as meek – Moses and Jesus.  We can look at the lives they led and the examples they set. But for the purposes of our study,  I want to look at the circumstances that seemed to have provoked the description of meekness.  In Deuteronomy 12:3 we are told this about Moses:  Now the man Moses was very humble (Hebrew word translated also as meek), more than all men who were on the face of the earth.

When did God call Moses humble?  What would be your guess?  I know what mine would have been.  It would have been when God called him from the burning bush and Moses made all those excuses about why he wasn’t good enough for God to use him.  But, that wasn’t when Moses was described as meek.  It was when his sister, Miriam, and his brother, Aaron, challenged his leadership.  Verse 2 tells us they said “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses?  Has He not spoken through us also? What did Moses do?  Did He strike them with His rod?  Did He verbally put them in their place?  How did Moses defend himself?  You know what Moses did?  Nothing.  Moses did nothing.  We are told that God heard what they said and God responded to what He heard.  He brought leprosy upon Miriam.  When Aaron pleaded to Moses to do something for his sister, Aaron changed his attitude and called Moses ‘my lord’.  Moses sought the Lord on Miriam’s behalf to heal her.  So, this is Moses’ example of meekness. He had the authority to put Miriam and Aaron in their place – but, instead, Moses submitted to God’s power and authority .  Then, rather than seeking retribution, he sought healing for his sister.

Now, let’s look at Jesus.  Matthew 21:5 "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King is coming to you,   Lowly (same New Testament word translated as meek in the beatitudes), and sitting on a donkey,  a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "

This is probably the best example of meekness.  Here we have Jesus, knowing He is king, knowing all of His power and even popularity, but not asserting it.  Jesus submitted to the Father’s will for Him and even rode into the city of Jerusalem on a donkey - the king exhibiting not honor, but lowliness.  A meek person knows who they are and are therefore not threatened by what others say of them, think of them, or do to them.  They choose not to retaliate, and not to stuff it (just take it), but take it to the one who will take care of it all – and take care of it all perfectly.  Meekness trusts God.

What have you learned about meekness from the examples set by Moses and Jesus? Two men, not afraid to take charge, two men, not afraid to take authority.  Yet, one was referred to as the meekest man on earth; the other as meek and lowly.Take a moment and ask the Lord to work in you this same meekness that Moses and Jesus exemplified.

Welcome to Babel!

I have decided not to post a blog on Sundays.

HOWEVER - if you feel led to use the comment section to reflect on this morning's message, that would be great.  I love the way the Lord is using the comments.  They have been awesome! 


This morning's sermon title - Welcome to Babel!

Genesis 1:28

Then God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Genesis 11:4

And they said, "Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth."

Genesis 11:7-8

Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another's speech." [8] So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth, and they ceased building the city.

Enjoy the day.
Love in Jesus,
cathy