Saturday, December 30, 2017

Blessed


Psalm 1:1-3 “Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper.” 

I started a new Bible Study on the “Be Attitudes” lately and have been blessed by the teachings from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount about this subject of the Christian life. Early on in my Christian walk, I discovered these attitudes in Matthew 5:3-12, of the Believer’s new nature, manner and outlook on life. The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “attitude” as: a disposition of the parts as serves to express the action and sentiments of the person represented. Basically, attitude is who we are at the heart, that leads to what we think, say and do.  

Deuteronomy 33:29 “Happy are you, O Israel! Who is like you, a people saved by the Lord, the shield of your help, and the sword of your triumph!”

Professor Brandon Crowe points out that we can throw around and use lightly the words bless, blessed and blessing in everyday conversation. So, when we read about the “blessed” ones in the Lord’s Beatitudes, the impact of the concept of blessing may get lost in translations. The entire Sermon on the Mount presents an ethical blueprint for disciples (Followers of Jesus Christ) who make up the Judeo/Christian community, providing great principles that are to guide Believers to righteousness in practice. But, we must always remember that we are foundationally not received by Jesus into a school of ethics but into a kingdom of redemption. A kingdom has a King and the subjects meditate on the importance of the law of God for life. To know and to do God’s law is to be blessed to the redeemed citizen of Heaven.

Matthew 1:21 “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

The 1828 Webster’s dictionary defines the word “blessed” as: Happy; prosperous in worldly affairs; enjoying spiritual happiness and the favor of God; enjoying heavenly felicity. God’s saving work provides the proper context for understanding what it means to be covenantally blessed and shows that being blessed with salvation also entails the responsibility to live according to God’s law. Happiness is rooted in godly holiness. Redemption precedes living according to Ephesians 2:1-10 and the Beatitudes. You have to have life” before you can “live”. It is thus in light of the gift of redemption that we are to hunger and thirst after righteousness, be pure in heart or any of the other Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are at once the blessings of the redeemed and the call for what the lives of the redeemed should look like and ways that the blessings of the redeemed reflect the character of their Savior. They speak of those spiritual characteristics into which we ought to strive, by God’s grace, to grow and mature in our Christian walk. The inductive – what we are – grounds the imperative – what God calls us  to be.


Romans 6:10-12 “For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.

Blessings

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