Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. - Colossians 4: 5-6 (ESV)
Seasoned with salt? No beloved. We have far too many peppery Christians. Remember the premise here from the key verses. We think blessed are those who stand up for themselves but that is not meekness. That is not how God thinks. Those who will inherit the earth and last eternally will be serving the interest of God not themselves. I recognize these are hard lessons. Jesus knew that when He was teaching them too. That is probably why he started with them. They are foundational. I simply do not understand why Christians get so mad when the world behaves like the world. We ought to have a godly remorse for them, knowing where they will be without the glorious salvation we enjoy. I have heard it taught that meekness isn't weakness and most of the times that is followed by carnal teaching that makes it clear they missed the point. Jesus laid His life down like a lamb being led to slaughter but if someone removes a nativity scene from the town square we act as if Armageddon has begun. Jesus willingly took the beatings and insults and had a crown of thorns shoved into His head until His own blood filled His eyes and we act as if baking a cake for a sinner requires an angry public response. Please beloved. I know meekness is difficult. I know it is the opposite of this world. Yet it is who will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. What do we pursue beloved? What is it that we chase after? Is it money and riches? Is it fame and notoriety? Is it the baubles and trinkets of this world? Is it ministry and church recognition? I find it interesting that God delineates between hunger and thirst. Hunger implies what we seek for sustenance and thirst what we seek for relief. The cold hard reality is that many of us in church have one or both of these things wrong. Perhaps we feast on the things of this world and only come to God when we are desperate. Thirsty for what is good, pure and right. Or perhaps we feed correctly on the Word and fill ourselves in Christianity but seek our satisfaction and relief from the world. Sitting on the fence. Half in the church and half in the world. It becomes so much harder when you can no longer tell them apart. When mega churches allow Miley Cyrus songs during worship. Disco dancing during praise. When preaching is coming from lessons found in secular television or movies instead of the Word of God. The reality however is that none of that will satisfy us.
For he satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul he fills with good things. - Psalm 107: 9 (ESV)
We crawl through the spiritual wasteland that is the church in this country and when we get there we are so desperate and ignorant we drink the sand. It is no wonder that the average time someone spends in a mega church is less than three years. You can only go starving and dying of thirst for so long. This Beatitude is teaching us what Ecclesiastes teaches us. So much of this is just a chasing after the wind. Instead our focus ought to be on the righteousness of God. To be in right standing with God. I can hear the false teachers crying already that we have the righteousness of Christ but that is a eternal position, not a temporal condition. We still are sinners, encased in flesh, navigating a fallen world. We still need to be pursuing what is right in the eyes of God. Not as a payment for salvation. That is where many go off the rails. Salvation is in faith alone. No works so that none may boast but too often people take that a step further as if to pretend that there should be no good works at all!. That there should be no pursuit of righteousness and doing the right thing in God's eyes. That is simply unbiblical. Not only should we desire righteousness but we ought to be hungering for it. It should be what we pursue to sustain us. We ought to thirst after it. It ought to be what we seek when we need relief in a world gone mad. Doing things according to God is not punishment beloved. False grace teachers have given the law a dirty name. We ought to WANT to do the will of God once we are saved and if we find ourselves there, He shall indeed satisfy us with living waters.
Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.It is not surprising that such a merciful God would be so concerned about mercy. The Prophet Micah declares three things the Lord actually requires of us and loving mercy is one of them. Not merely being merciful. Not merely paying lip service to it. Loving it. Our condition as saved Christians ought to inspire mercy within us. We ought not be able to look upon the unsaved the same way again. We ought to see them in their eternal condition of damned. A condition we once shared before God saved us. We see so much anger and hostility towards the unsaved these days. This is the scheme of the enemy to make us hate the very people we ought to be merciful towards. They are walking in darkness. The things of God are utter foolishness to them yet we act as the Sons of Thunder once acted:
When the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers ahead of him, who went and entered a village of the Samaritans, to make preparations for him. But the people did not receive him, because his face was set toward Jerusalem. And when his disciples James and John saw it, they said, "Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?"But he turned and rebuked them.And they went on to another village. - Luke 9: 51-56 (ESV)
The world behaves like the world and we want to call down fire from heaven to consume them. You want me to bake you a cake? How dare you! We want to usurp the wrath of God even though He stayed His wrath for us. Yet mercy is not just for matters of salvation. There is seemingly a lack of compassion amongst professing Christians sometimes. We are quick to say we will pray for someone but loathe to stop our lives long enough to do so in the moment. We speak grand thesis of doctrinal purity yet walk past the suffering, be them saved or unsaved. Church ought to be the one place we feel the most love and compassion but many hide their pain for not wanting to be seen as failing or falling by a body of Christ that traffics in judgment. Casting Crowns once wrote about this beautifully:
But
would it set me free; If I dared to let you see
The truth behind the person; That you imagine me to be
Would your arms be open; Or would you walk away
Would the love of Jesus; Be enough to make you stay
Loving mercy is prosperity. It is the state of spiritual well being. It is blessedness. Because it reminds us of the position we once held. It reminds us of how far down God had to go to save us. Paul considered himself the least of the apostles because he once persecuted the church. He never forgot where God found him. We ought to do likewise because it is the merciful who receive mercy. Take it a step further and read the Parable of the Unmerciful Servant and you will discover that he who does not love mercy will find none from God. We ought to love mercy because of who we are in Christ and if we find ourselves not loving it so, we ought to examine ourselves to make sure we are in fact, in Christ.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Holiness is one of the forgotten doctrines in the church today. No one wants to hear about creating within us a pure heart. God cannot look upon iniquity beloved. The pure in heart are not sinless because all have sinned and fall short. Instead, they view sin differently. They run away from it as Joseph ran away from Potiphar's wife. They do not run towards it as David once ran to Bathsheba. Paul Washer once preached that when someone tells him that they have a new relationship with God he asks them if they have a new relationship with sin because unless you do, you do not have a new relationship with God. Pure in heart starts with understanding that sin offends God. It distances God. The regenerate heart is sorrowful in sin. It seeks forgiveness for it knowing that Scripture teaches us He is just to forgive us. That is what the caveat, they shall see God, means. Many speak about "deeper" experiences with God but they are illusions. They are deluded by emissaries of Satan disguising themselves as angels of light. A deeper experience of God is not found in pulsating strobe lights and false "glory clouds." It is found in a penitent heart. It is found as Peter describes:
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance,but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." - 1Peter 1: 13-16 (ESV)
Sober minded. Obedient children. Do not conform to what? Passions of your former ignorance. That is a fancy way of saying sin. Our former ignorance was in that we did not see sin as offensive to God but now we do. Now we are called to holiness. Now we are called to be pure in heart because it is in that pursuit that we see God!
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God. There are many in Christianity who try to turn the Prince of Peace into a gun toting, war mongering, butched up biker. They think God is on their side in the wars of man. They think that when they kill someone it is a righteous act but when others do it, there must be evil afoot. Taking it down a notch in society, there are many in the church who simple do not sow peace. They cannot keep their peace. Everything is a cause for disruption, angst, and instability. Mind you this is not the same as sowing discord amongst the brethren, which is largely misunderstood.
I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive. - Romans 16: 17-18 (ESV)
It is false doctrine that cause discord and division in the body of Christ; not those who correctly point it out. The person preaching what itching ears wish to hear are those who are peace breakers. God is His Word and His Word is perfect peace. To compromise it is to compromise peace itself. There is no peace apart from God, just look at the world! Those who are the true sons of God are those who seek peace in every situation. Who crave peace. Who strive to live peaceably with everyone. That is the true nature of blessedness. That is true prosperity. If you asked most people what they lacked in life you would find peace outweighs even money. They try to find peace in drugs and alcohol. They try to find peace in sex and relationships. They try to find peace everywhere except where they can truly find it - in God. Once we experience that great peace, which surpasses our understanding, what are we to do with it? Hide it? Keep it to ourselves? No beloved. We are called to share it. We are called to embrace it and embody it. We are called to be the sons of God by living peace in everything we do. I am not saying it is easy. None of these Beatitudes are easy because they go against our sinful human nature. Which is why we need to be reflecting to the indwelt Holy Spirit to guide us. It is no wonder that peace is actually listed as a fruit of the Spirit. We ought to manifesting it as sons of God and not feeding into the world system of hate and turmoil. The final Beatitude is a grouping:
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