Jesus in Matthew 5:1-3 seeing the multitudes, He went up on a mountain, and when He was seated His disciples came to Him. Then He opened His mouth and taught them, saying: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
Jesus’ sermon on the mount starts with God’s blessings. The blessings of God are upside down from what the world considers blessings. The world thinks that poverty, mournfulness, meekness, hunger, thirst, purity, poor in spirit, and persecution are curses, not blessings. However, Jesus said, when those who live righteous in Christ are persecuted by the world, great is their reward in heaven. As the Apostle Paul said, the suffering of this present fleeting moment in time is not to be compared with the eternal glory that shall be revealed in us.
According to 1 Peter 3, even if you suffer for the sake of righteousness, you’re blessed. Jesus’ last beatitude says, Blessed are they 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. Our friends bring us closer to the Lord. The job of the Holy Spirit is to afflict the comfortable and to comfort the afflicted. Joy is not the absence of pain. Joy is the presence of the Lord.
The Apostle Paul listed his “friends” in 2 Corinthians 11. Paul suffered and endured scourging, beatings, stoning, imprisonment, shipwrecks, in perils of the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils against false brethren. These perils were his “friends” because through the pain of his “thorn in the flesh” and through the patience of suffering, he finally understood his true calling. He came to the conclusion that for me to live is Christ and to die (to myself and to the world) is gain.
Isaiah 40 says, nothing in this world will last. This too shall pass. Even the nations of the world will rise and fall … nations are but a drop in the bucket from God’s eternal perspective. For that which is seen is temporal, but that which is unseen, the things of the spirit of God, are eternal. The things the world considers success, God says will come to naught…. Ecclesiastes says everything is vanity… everything is [figuratively] “dust in the wind.”
The Pharisees thought that Paul had reached the pinnacle of success. In Philippians 3:5-7, Paul listed his worldly credentials, “If anyone else thinks he may have confidence in the flesh, I more so: circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews; concerning the law, a Pharisee; concerning zeal, persecuting the church; concerning the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.” However in verses 8-11, Paul came to the conclusion that these worldly credentials didn’t matter: “But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death, if, by any means, I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.”
Let's continue Micheal's message on the blessings of adversities in life on the next post. There are useful lessons be be learned and applied to our walk.
In Christ, Brian
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