The poor have it all....

In teaching circles, it seems like common knowledge that if you teach something, you learn it much more thoroughly than you ever have before.  I had heard this saying even before I was a church worker, but now that I have spent a few years writing Bible studies and teaching children, youth, and adults... I understand how true this is.  It is especially true of teaching something like the Word of God, which is called "living and active" in Hebrews 4:12(NIV).  You can learn a particular story and passage a dozen times, and still turn around to read it one day and have a whole new understanding of what you read that revolutionizes the way you think or act.  This is not to say the meaning changes, but knowing the words of the Bible is like knowing a person: even if you've known them for your whole life, they can still surprise you.

Recently, I taught a study on the Beatitudes, which are the first part of Jesus' "Sermon on the Mount," and are recorded in Matthew 5:1-12.  I had read through the Beatitudes probably a million times, had sat through several bible studies on them, and had even written the study that I taught.  Yet, as I discussed the Beatitudes with the youth mentors who would teach the study to their small group of youth, and as I taught it to my youth small group... the significance of this passage overwhelmed me again.

This passage is a description of Christian living, or at least... of what Christian living should look like as we are transformed more and more by the love of Christ and motivated by the Holy Spirit to live out that transformation in the lives of others.  I would love to explore all of them today, but I think over the next few weeks I will explore them in chunks and how I have understood them in my life.

The first Beatitude is:

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

What a contradiction this first verse seems!  The "poor in spirit" receives "the kingdom of heaven"?!  But I think it is no contradiction at all, but fits beautifully with the message of Christ.  Romans 3:23(NIV) states, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."  We are all "poor in spirit" because we have all done things for which we are ashamed, and we have all looked at the world and thought "This is wrong."  We know that we are not as we should be, and it is clear every day that the world is not as it should be.  

Yet, in this moment, God does not leave us in the shame of recognizing our own failings or the despair that the world is corrupt and broken.  In the same verse where we are called "poor in spirit," God offers this undeserved gift, "theirs is the kingdom of heaven."  In Luke 17:20-21, we learn the "Kingdom of God" is Jesus himself, for when Jesus is asked "When will the Kingdom of God come?", He replies, "the Kingdom of God is already among you," indicating Himself there speaking with them!  So when we, in our brokenness, are offered the "kingdom of God," we are offered Christ, Himself!  In that moment when we recognize how many mistakes we make and how horrible this world is, how completely contrary everything in life is to an absolutely perfect God... this same perfect God steps in and offers life! 

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." - Jesus (John 10:10b)