This week, my Christian friend Michael writes that Scottish Baptist evangelist and teacher Oswald Chambers’ wrote in a devotional about Matthew 5:39: When someone humiliates you by slapping you on your right cheek, turn the other cheek. The world says that to retaliate and hit back is the right thing to do. However, Jesus said, it’s a blessing to subject ourselves under his control when we’re humiliated according to the world’s standards. Humiliation teaches humility. We need to forsake our pride in order to approach the Lord’s throne of grace. To honor Him, we need to dis-honor the things of this world, especially selfish worldly pride, arrogant self-sufficiency and egocentric self-justification. I must decrease so that Christ may increase. Lord, Thy strength is made perfect in my weakness, thy grace is sufficient for me.
To approach the Lord, we must humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. When we come to understand that “I have found the enemy and he is me”, then we can lay down our burdens, take up our cross and follow Him. The cross of Christ crucifies our selfish pride, guilt, and shame. The Lord’s way is contrary to the world’s way. He is the narrow gate and the narrow way that leads to the heart of God. Jesus said, I am the way the truth, and the life ... no man cometh to the father except by me. When we forsake our pride to follow Him, He blazes the trail to God’s heart.
Jesus said, Blessed are the poor in spirit. Poverty is either the bare subsistence of a working man or it can also mean those who are absolutely destitute of spirit. In order to come to Christ, a man or woman needs to come to an understanding that he or she is desperate... that they are poor in spirit. The world praises natural ability ... those who are naturally talented, wise, and affluent in the things this world holds dear. However, when a person comes to Christ they realizes that there is more to this life than the secular humanistic material world can offer. They are convicted by God’s Holy Spirit of falling short of the glory of God, their Maker. The Spirit of God afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted in order to restore them back to an upright position.
The prophet Isaiah needed to be brought down by a fantastic vision to realize that he was destitute and insufficient to approach the Lord. According to Isaiah 6:1-7, “In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar: And he laid it upon my mouth, and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips; and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged.”
The word of God reflects who we really are without God and without hope in a world of darkness. For those who are poor in spirit and who hunger and thirst after righteousness, the Word of God and the Spirit of God convicts us. Then when the Lord purges us and fills us with His Spirit, we can perceive the Word of God with Christ’s eyes behind our eyes. His Word will reflect who we really are ... for we all with open face beholding in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed from glory (of the flesh) to glory (of God’s Spirit) by the spirit of the Lord. The kingdom of Heaven is high above any worldly perception. It is not bound by earthly time, place and space. The kingdom of Heaven exists in the eternal now, for there is no time in eternity. Therefore Jesus Christ, who was without sin, was made the perfect sacrifice for sin on our behalf that we may be made the righteousness of God in Him ... now and in eternity. In Jesus Christ’s presence, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the (eternal) kingdom of heaven.
Humility is the characteristic of Jesus Christ himself. He took upon himself the form of a servant and became obedient unto death, even the death upon the cross. After Mother Theresa had spoken to congress, a senator seeking publicity approached her while the TV cameras were rolling. He said, “On behalf of my constituents, I’d like to present you a check for one million dollars for your foundation, the Sisters of Mercy.” She replied, “God has taken good care of us and will continue to do so. Thank you but keep your money. God works best with nothing. Please go home and become nothing so you can serve the people you represent.”
God doesn’t call the equipped and qualified, he equips and qualifies the called. He doesn’t need our sacrifice. He doesn’t need our natural abilities. He needs our obedience. Then when we obey His Word, it is God who works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. Humility teaches us that life is not about us. Christianity is not about who we are but rather, whose we are. For He alone is worthy. Blessed are the poor in spirit. God works best with nothing ... its none of me and all of thee Lord. When we love God above all, He is the object of our affection, our obedience, our all in all so that we may live to the praise of the glory of His grace.
Your brother in Christ, Michael
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