The Blessing of Poverty in Spirit

Today’s Scripture Threshing for Thursday, March 7, 2019

Today’s Text: Matthew 5:1-3

Key Verse: Matthew 5:3 (NLT): “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”

If you ever lived in India, one of the commonly used words you’d most likely hear on any beggars-filled-street is “baksheesh.” You’d see how needy people desperately hold out their hands and say this one word, ready to be helped. However, a visiting preacher explained how shocked he was speaking on salvation as the gift of God, and heard his interpreter use that same word, “baksheesh” repeatedly in his line. This helped him to double down on the fact that more people do not have salvation because they are not willing to hold out their hands towards God. They fail to take their place among people who are spiritually bankrupt, having a dire need for God.

While our generation favors wealth and increasingly disapprove poverty, we need heaven-minded generation which realizes that the kingdom of heaven needs no golden key for its gate to open. A man simply needs a sense of poverty towards God to gain access. This is without prejudice to his outward position or possessions.

In today’s gospel teaching of our Lord, the poverty in spirit is not the same as not being able to make ends meet or afford a leisurely life. It is not having meagre earthly possessions. But it is having a consciousness of one’s spiritual deficiency and need for God despite any outward position or possession. They approach God in a humble spiritual disposition. They come to God as men who spread their hands out, with a sense of emptiness and helplessness, to receive God’s great, comprehensive “baksheesh” of eternal happiness through Christ. The Master says, they are happy because the kingdom of heaven is for such souls.

Don’t miss the point! To be poor in the spirit is not poor in spirituality or in spiritual things. It means that before we can enter God’s kingdom, we must recognise the utter worthlessness, or better put, unworthiness of our own spiritual currency — the inability of our own works — to save us. It is, therefore, a state of humility and submission before God, simply convinced that without Christ, we are wretched, blind, naked, and poor.

Is this your attitude towards God? Do you approach Him with all-sufficient spirit? Do you trust in your churchmanship, charity, stewardship and services to the poor, church or community? Please realize that God blesses the spiritually humble. Lower yourself before the almighty hand of God, and He shall lift you.

Quote for the Day: “The higher our thoughts of Christ, the lower our fancied excellence and pride. Because poverty of spirit is the foundation stone on which He (Christ) lays the superstructure of His Kingdom.” (Simon Olatunji)

Prayer: Dear LORD, help me to understand my limitations and need for you in my daily walk. Give me a sense of poverty that seeks true riches of heaven; a sense of emptiness that seeks to be filled with all graces of heaven. Amen.

With all my Love and Prayer,

Simon Wale Olatunji, PhD

The Darling Bishop (DaBishop),

2321 S Belt Line Rd., Suite 144,

Grand Prairie TX 75051 USA

Email: reachingout@hopeforallnations.org

BBMme: E3F988D2

[Today’s Scripture Threshing is a devotional guide of The House of Prayer Evangel Church USA. Feel free to use it in your family altar and personal quiet times; and to contact us for further enquiry, help and partnership.]

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