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Carl Bloch, 1890
Living from the Inside Out
Jesus did not say, “I wish you blessedness.” He said, “Blessed is the man who” in much the same way that He said, “Woe to the man who.” He was not simply wishing; in both cases, He was making judgmental pronouncements.
When you really recognize your sinfulness, you become meek with a sense of humility. Then you seek and hunger and thirst for righteousness. That manifests itself in mercy (v. 7), in purity of heart (v. 8), and in a peacemaking spirit (v. 9).
Why does Jesus start with the poor in spirit? Poverty of spirit is the foundation of all graces. It is also countercultural, as so much of our modern Christianity feeds on pride. As long as we are not poor in spirit, we cannot receive grace. You can’t even become a Christian unless you’re poor in spirit.
God gives grace to the humble. That’s why a poor spirit has to be at the very beginning.
You trade your efforts for His power. You trade your weakness for His strength. You trade your inability for His ability.
The “be renewed” in Ephesians 4:23 means that you are acted upon. Give up the power of you, and live in the power of Him. You can’t do both. Trade one in for the other. The New Covenant is all about Christ in you.
Blessed are…
Jesus doesn’t promise happiness, but blessedness. Happiness is transitory and driven by circumstance while blessedness is eternal and grounded in the reality of Christ in you.
When you are poor in spirit, the natural state of your soul is blessedness. The outcome of being poor in spirit is a state of blessedness. It is a description instead of a command. It describes a life set apart.
In his study, The Beatitudes, Spiros Zodhiates explains it this way, “It is similar to a doctor’s saying, ‘If you rest, if you take this medicine, the result will be thus and so.’ The Lord says that where the condition of poverty of spirit exists, the result is blessedness. This is the pronouncement of the One who knows. He diagnoses, He prescribes, He foretells the result.”
The very first thing Jesus said about the new kingdom was that it belonged to those who recognized that they were incapable of providing spiritually tor themselves.
To be filled, we must be emptied.
Destitute in Our Inner Being
It may be difficult for us to comprehend, but the beatitudes describe the inner life of Jesus. Consider this: Jesus—King of kings, Creator of all that exists, Sustainer of all creation, In-the-Beginning God—made Himself nothing, took the very nature of a servant, humbled Himself, became obedient. All by choice.
In His first Beatitude, Jesus declares that the kingdom of God is given to those who acknowledge their spiritual bankruptcy before God. The word poor Jesus used comes from the Greek ptokas, a noun that means poor in this world’s goods; it describes a beggar, desperately ashamed even to allow his identity to be known. It is not just poor, it is begging poor.
And so, you come to God with a sense of utter dependence and knowing that you deserve nothing but the judgment of God. You confess that you have nothing to offer, nothing to plead that would change the situation. “I come to You, Lord, like a spiritual beggar. I have nothing in myself. Have pity upon me as you would have upon a beggar.”
Do you know what God will do? He will pour forth His love upon you. You will experience the love of God being poured into your life. And then you understand that being poor in spirit means that God’s love is being poured into your heart.
God identifies with people who beg on the inside, not people who are self-sufficient, not people who think they can work out their own salvation. This is a rather unpopular doctrine in the church today. We emphasize celebrities and experts and superstars and rich, famous Christians.
The world says, “Assert yourself, be proud of yourself, grab your place in the sun.” But God says that when you admit your weakness, when you admit your nothingness, that’s not the end. It’s the beginning! But it is the hardest thing you will ever do. Jesus is saying the first thing you have to admit is, “I can’t.” That’s poverty of spirit.
How to Become Poor in Spirit
The more willing we are to humble ourselves and confess that we are poor in spirit and destitute except tor the provision of Christ in us, the more we will experience the life of Christ. Blessed are the poor in spirit.
The Father created you so that you have physical and material needs, as well as spiritual and emotional needs. He wants you to depend on Him for every part of your life.
How can we become poor in spirit? Here are three principles John MacArthur suggests in The Beatitudes: The Only Way to Happiness:
- Do not begin by trying to do it by yourself. Looking at yourself or even at others will not make it. The right place to look is to God. Read His Word. Look at Christ. As you gaze at Him and meditate on Him and His words, you lose yourself.
- Starve the flesh—your carnal nature. That’s the place we all want to be—totally dependent upon Him.
- Do you want to be poor in spirit? Ask. “God,” said the publican, “be merciful to me.” Jesus said that the man went home justified. Happy is the man who is a beggar in his spirit.
How will you know when you are “poor in spirit”? MacArthur suggests these seven characteristics will be evident in your life:
- Weaned from yourself (Psalm 131:2). One who is poor in spirit loses a sense of self.
- Lost in the wonder of Christ, gazing at His glory (2 Corinthians 3:18).
- Never complain about your situation
- See only the excellencies of others and only your own weaknesses. Truly humble is the one who has to look up to everyone else.
- Spending much time in prayer
- Taking Christ on His terms, not yours. Thomas Watson said, “A castle that has long been besieged and is ready to be taken will deliver up on any terms to save its life. He whose heart has been a garrison for the devil and has held out long in opposition against Christ, when once God has brought him to poverty of spirit, and he sees himself damned without Christ, let God prosper, let God offer, and he will simply say, ‘Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?’”
- Praising and thanking God for grace. If there was ever a characteristic of a person poor in spirit, it is an overwhelming gratitude to God.
May you become “poor in spirit” and learn what it means to “be a nobody”, as you shoot for the stars!