Our Lord begins his reckoning of “blessings” with poverty in spirit. Poverty in spirit leads to mourning and to hunger and thirst for righteousness. If one thinks he is rich, why would he desire increase? The world has its own definition of a blessed person: one who is rich, strong, self satisfied, popular, enjoys life, etc. They are the worlds beatitudes of sight in the present world. Poverty of spirit is not a feeling of self-disgust which comes over us when we compare our gifts and talents with those of others; it is born from no earthly inspiration, it proceeds from coming face to face with God. A man may be poor in spirit while his soul is on fire with enthusiasm for the cause of God. It is not shown in self-depreciation but in the strength that comes from trustfulness. It is the attitude which, in the presence of God, recognizes its entire dependence, empties itself, and is as a poor man, not that it may be feeble, but that God may fill it.
Blessed — happy, enviably fortunate, and spiritually prosperous–that is–possessing the happiness produced by the experience of God’s favor and especially conditioned by the revelation of His grace, regardless of their outward conditions) are the pure in heart, for they shall see God! How do we keep our heart pure so that we might see God? First, we must start by asking God to come into our heart, and changing us from a sinner to one of His children. We must be “born again.” We must ask Him to forgive our sins and accept what Jesus, God’s Son, did for us on the cross, when He died as an innocent man to take our sins. Jesus then was buried and rose the third day and ascended to heaven, and lives eternally with the Father. Once we become His child, then we need to ask God to cleanse our heart and mind from those things that we embraced while we were a sinner. The Bible tells us that there are things in us, that we need to be delivered from.
Man finds much of his pleasure in the torture of others. Much of the religious persecutions of history were the result of a desire for pleasure or pleasant reaction on the part of those who persecuted.
You don’t rejoice because you are being persecuted, it could be painful, but you look beyond that to the reward.
“The Kingdom of heaven” is the same as the Kingdom of God. The Hebraic avoidance of the use of the name of God led to use of the expression “Kingdom of Heaven.” It has reference to this world and the world beyond. The blessing cited by our Lord have both spiritual; and material fulfillment, and the inheritance in time and in eternity. To be blessed means to inherit the earth, and to inherit heaven, it means being comforted and gaining mercy. The relationship between blessing and inheritance is inseparable.
