Title: Owner of Heaven / Luke 6:20
Contents
The owner of heaven / Luke 6:20
Perhaps one of the things that modern people hate the most is poverty. As one famous thinker exclaimed: "Resolve not to become poor. Poverty is the enemy of happiness. In some ways, poverty seems to be evil. Because we see many cases of making people miserable and breeding various kinds of social evil. Nevertheless, in today's text, Jesus is happy. He did not hesitate to use the term poverty in his sermons on Luke: "Blessed are the poor in spirit. In Luke's Gospel, he said, "Blessed are the poor, without the word in spirit."
How can poverty be a blessing? How can poverty be a condition of happiness? “What does it mean to be poor?
The Gospel of Matthew emphasizes poverty in spirit. This refers to the attitude of heart we should have before God. It is the attitude of the heart that is thoroughly humbled before God. In front of people, you just have to do what you have. However, when we come before the Holy Father, our hearts must be poor.
However, in the Gospel of Luke, the word “spirit” is omitted. It simply says, “Blessed are the poor. This is actually saying that the poor who have no money and live in poverty are blessed. Luke must be particularly pointed out that the poor in spirit include the poor because they have practically no money. There are two reasons for this interpretation.
First, our Jesus came to preach the gospel to the poor.
Second, most of the people sitting before Jesus like a cloud to hear the Sermon on the Mount were poor people.
First, look at the disciples of Jesus. Did they not give up everything they had to follow Jesus? They were poor people who had abandoned their homes, their property, their families, their jobs, and abandoned them all. And there were many poor people who said 'no' in Hebrew in the Old Testament among those who listened to Jesus' sermons now. Who are those people? These are people who have chosen to be poor. At that time, just like now, if you want to earn more money and live a richer life than others, there was a social and structural evil that you must compromise with some injustice. Therefore, in Jesus' day, godly people had to make a choice. Will you live richly with injustice? Or will you break with injustice and live a godly life through a poor life instead? These devout people who said no, chose the latter. Rather, he decided to become a righteous man who lived in poverty and had a deeper communion with God. For example, Joseph, a righteous man who was betrothed to Mary. Lazarus the beggar, Zacharias and Elizabeth, and the few who accepted Jesus were all like this. They are all poor.
And among the many people in the audience before Jesus, there were a lot of people who were born into a lowly family and could not escape poverty even if they worked to break their bones throughout their lives.
Therefore, it must be said that Jesus actually spoke these words with such poor people in mind. In other words, Jesus is actually saying that the poor are blessed. Why?
The poor can trust Jesus more easily than the rich. This is the reality. In fact, the gospel entered Japan before Korea. However, Christians are less than 2%. However, in Korea, it is 22%. I think it was because there was poverty behind it, and because there was suffering behind it. It's true. It is easy for the poor to believe in Jesus. Even now, there are far more poor people than rich people in the church.
In Matthew 19:23, Jesus spoke explicitly.
“I tell you the truth, it is difficult for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Is the rich person we are talking about spiritually rich? No, I mean the rich man who actually has a lot of money. “Again, I tell you, the camel goes through the eye of a needle, the rich God easier than entering the kingdom of
In other words, it is said that it is easier for the poor to enter heaven than the rich. The story is that it is much easier for the poor to be saved.
Among these, if there are people who came to believe in Jesus because they were poor from birth and did not have the taste of life if they did not believe in Jesus, please give thanks to God. Those who believe in Jesus because they are poor should be thankful for their poverty.
At the same time, the poor can empty their minds more easily than the rich.
A poor person can easily have poverty in spirit. Do you have nothing to bring before God? There's no way to say it's good. That's why you have to be poor in spirit.
Because of this poverty, people who are actually living in hardship believe even if they believe in Jesus, risking their lives. A life of faith in Jesus is not a luxury. It's not education. It's a matter of survival. Without Jesus, we cannot live. Even in the world, we suffer and live sadly, but if we cannot be saved because we do not believe in Jesus, how can we live because we are unfair? That's why they rush to believe in Jesus as a matter of life or death. If so, isn't that poverty a blessing?
If you are poor in heart, the Lord is present in your heart and takes care of it. The merciful Lord embraces the soul that always has wrinkles on his face because he doesn't have enough money and sometimes sighs involuntarily. So there is happiness that the world doesn't know about.
Not everyone who is poor is unhappy. You can be happy even if you are poor. Don't be deceived by Satan's words that show you all the glory of the world and that happiness is here. Of course, there is nothing wrong with having a lot of money. But if you think that wealth and money are happiness, you are mistaken. Money is not what makes heaven in my heart.
Regardless of whether we are materially rich or poor, if we have the Lord in our hearts, serve Him, and give a beautiful life for Him, wouldn't that happiness extend to that eternal kingdom?