This week, Michael writes that the purpose and the object of the beatitudes is salvation. Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Jesus said, there is only one way into the kingdom of heaven ... there is a narrow gate and a narrow way that leads to salvation. In order to enter the narrow gate, it’s not in our own finite power, but only through His infinite power. We must first forsake our pride, our self-serving selfish nature and our self-centered self-worship. When God reveals to us that in my own flesh dwelleth no good thing, that we are poor in spirit, we will mourn over the dreadful sin that has separated our hearts from God’s heart. Then the Lord will fill us with the hunger and thirst for His righteousness. When the Lord gives us the acquired taste for His holy Word, His love, His righteousness, and His fellowship, then the Lord will fill us with His Holy Spirit. Then we can come before His holy presence with singing and enter into the narrow gate to Heaven with thanksgiving, into His courts and before the throne of God with praise.
He will give us His nature ... for the Lord is good, His mercy is everlasting and His truth endures forever. When God reveals to us His mercy and grace, we in turn will reflect His mercy. Blessed are the merciful for they shall see God. They shall see who He is from his spiritual perspective. From a heart of mercy, love, and grace, God will show us the meaning of peace. For Jesus said, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you. Not as the world giveth unto you give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. Without the prince of peace there is no true peace. Real godly peace is the result of reconciling our hearts with God’s heart, for there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
Because the world cannot understand true peace, Jesus said they will hate you because they hated me. John 3:20 says, he that does evil hates the light, neither cometh to the light lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that does truth comes to the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they are wrought of God. When we stand with our Lord, Jesus said, blessed are you when men shall revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, for great is your reward in heaven.
The beatitudes are upside down from the attitudes of this world. The worldly definition of success is opposite from Jesus’ definition of success. The worldly secular rulers said, Jesus went to the wrong school, he did not attend the right universities, He didn’t come from the right family and grow up in the right home town. They said, how can anything good come out of Nazareth? He had no place to lay his head... he was a man who was despised, scorned, ridiculed, discredited and persecuted by the powers of this world.
Amid the chaos, pain, suffering, and persecution of this world, Jesus said, I have not come to condemn the world, but to save the world. So, he who repents of sin and believes in Jesus as Savior and Lord is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. When they nailed him to the cross, in excruciating pain he prayed, Father forgive them, for they know not what they do. In a world where the bullies were running amok, the people marveled because he taught them as one who had power and authority, not as the scribes and the Pharisees. The scribes and Pharisees spoke with eloquent great swelling words of man’s vanity, but Jesus spoke with the power of God and in demonstration of Divine truth.
Let's continue Michael's message on Divine Truth in the next post.
In Christ, Brian
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