1One day Jesus saw a vast crowd of people gathering to hear him, so he went up the slope of a hill and sat down. With his followers and disciples spread over the hillside, 2Jesus began to teach them:
3“What happiness comes to you when you feel your spiritual poverty! For yours is the realm of heaven’s kingdom.
4“What delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord! For you will find what you long for.
5“What blessing comes to you when gentleness lives in you! For you will inherit the earth.
6“How enriched you are when you crave righteousness! For you will be satisfied.
7“How blessed you are when you demonstrate tender mercy! For tender mercy will be demonstrated to you.
8“What bliss you experience when your heart is pure! For then your eyes will open to see more and more of God.
9“How joyful you are when you make peace! For then you will be recognized as a true child of God.
10“How enriched you are when persecuted for doing what is right! For then you experience the realm of heaven’s kingdom.
11“How blessed you are when people insult and persecute you and speak all kinds of cruel lies about you because of your love for me! 12So leap for joy—since your heavenly reward is great. For you are being rejected the same way the prophets were before you.
Attitude is important to Jesus. He wants us to look more and more like Him. He wants us to be like Him, to react as He would, and to view others as He does. So, He gave us the Beatitudes, a series of Jesus' sayings that show what it looks like to live in His Kingdom. Not just the heavenly kingdom, but the kingdom He ushered in when He arrived on our planet. We're living in the midst of that kingdom and we need to know what it looks like to be a resident.
These verses tend to go against our human nature. We live in a world that tells us mourning is something we shouldn't dwell on, that we need to move on in order to heal. Jesus calls the mourners blessed. He doesn't say we need to quickly move on. He says He'll comfort us if we stay present.
The world tells us that we will get nowhere if we are humble or meek. We need ti push our way to the front of the line, stand up for our rights. Jesus says the humble will inherit the earth. Jesus turned the world upside down with His teachings, They were then and are today, kind of hard to swallow. It seems to go against our nature, which is pretty much the point.
Kingdom living, with-God living, is contrary to our human, sinful nature. God's order is radically different from ours. Jesus takes those people who are considered unblessed and shows them that in His kingdom, blessings abound. When Jesus says that the peacemakers will be called God's children He's saying that those who live peacefully among troublemakers and pot-stirrers God will call His. He's saying that those who are quiet instead of making sure their views and opinions are heard at the expense of others will belong to Him. What?! That's not what advances people. That's not how you get anywhere in this world. But in Jesus' kingdom, it is.
How can the kingdom of God possibly work that way? Jesus. His presence, love, and acceptance truly change everything, The Beatitudes remind us that we should be living a life of service, to God and to others.
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