A Blessed Life

Last week in Luke 4:33-42 and Mark 1:23-35 we saw Jesus busily healing and delivering everyone who came to Him. Now, in Matthew 5:1-11, we find Him on a mountain giving what is often called the “sermon on the mount” and where nine times Jesus says, “blessed are” then describes the blessed, beginning with “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and ending with “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.”

The number nine in the Bible means finality or judgment, and also completeness as in the nine gifts of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:8-10) and nine fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).

But who exactly did Jesus call “blessed”? It’s a strange collection of people, really. They are poor in spirit, they mourn, they are meek, they hunger and thirst for what is right, they are merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, and persecuted. In short, they sum up what Christians are to be with the help of the Holy Spirit. When you look at Jesus’ nine “blessed bes” it’s amazing how much they actually correspond to the fruit of the Spirit. They are the measuring rod, the standard, if you will, of Jesus’ evaluation and judgment of our Christian’s life.

This should comfort us for it encompasses the highs and lows of our walk. It reminds us that we came to God because we saw our poverty, our great deficiency in spirit, and how this realization is a true blessing. It tells us that God sees the times we are merciful; the times we strive to live in peace with others; the times we walk meekly instead of proudly and full of self—and when we do, we are blessed. It warns us that there will be times when we will mourn and times when we will be persecuted, but to take heart, God sees and we are blessed. 

The Christian life is not an easy one, and actually would be down right impossible without the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit. But it’s a blessed life, a life that pleases God, both those times of joy and those times when we suffer for doing what’s right or for His name sake. And here’s the icing on the cake. It’s what Jesus said after pronouncing those nine blessings, “Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven.”

So those times we feel unnoticed, unappreciated and like a salmon swimming up-stream in a world antagonistic to all Jesus stands for, we need to take heart. Our reward is great. Only, we can’t expect it until we get to heaven.

Until next time,

Sylvia