Title: The Christian Life of Poverty
The spiritual life is said to be the life of Jesus Christ. If you ask, What is it to live as Jesus Christ? How did Jesus live? The Gospels record many different aspects of the life of Jesus. almsgiving, healing, praying, teaching, real life, rebuke for injustice, and so on.
However, if you look at the history of Christianity, we tried to become like Christ by arranging the various aspects of Jesus' life into a few and practicing them. The seven stems: solitude, obedience, poverty, silence, humility, manual labor, prayer and contemplation. is. In the Franciscan Monastery, four of these seven disciplines were intensively practiced: poverty, obedience, peace, and love. In some monasteries, they lead a spiritual life centered on three things: poverty, silence, and obedience.
The spiritual life is not completed by keeping all seven items, but it is an extremely spiritual, mystical, and divine matter that can be completed by keeping only one item well. However, having a determination to lead a spiritual life and living as you please are completely different dimensions. In the future, I think we should make our spirituality deeper, wider and more transparent as we make decisions, ponder, and practice with deep interest in this spiritual ministry, spiritual training, and spiritual training.
Today, I would like to meditate on Chungbin among them. Purity is a basic item of all spiritual training.
2. What is poverty-stricken life?
The dictionary meaning of poverty is a life with a clear mind and living in poverty. The life of Chung-bin is not a tiring and tiring life. It is not, however, a life that is rigid, hard, and solemnly hardened. Nor is a life that is dull and dull like scorched ashes without any fashion or taste. The life of a young man is a rich and leisurely life, eating greens, drinking water, and lying with his arms crossed. It is a life that always saves and enriches people, not a stuffy life that is bound by laws and doctrine. The life of poverty is to be free from the interest and obsession with the wealth, honor and power of this world, and to keep one's soul from darkening, from becoming heavy, from being trapped, from becoming dull. It is a life where you try to live according to God's will by renewing your mind without being swayed by the world's fashions and customs. (Kyungjae Kim, Christian Spiritual Life)
Poverty is the wisdom of transcendence that knows how to face both wealth and poverty. It is the strength of knowledge that knows that having food and clothing is sufficient.
3. How will you be poor?
One, I can be poor by distinguishing between the necessary and the unnecessary among the things I have. Give to him who asks of you, and do not refuse. He said, “Give, and I will give you abundantly and abundantly.” In the Bible, “Give! > has many commands. But we pile them up when we don't need them. Books that I have kept for decades and never read, dishes I don't use, clothes I don't wear, ... and so on. You can become poor by arranging all unnecessary things and giving them away to those in need.
One, you can become poor by keeping your environment clean. The cleanliness of a church and the purity of heart of its members are directly proportional. The cleanliness of a person's environment is directly proportional to the purity of the person's heart. God reveals the light of the face of His grace to those who sweep, scrape, and purify the church without a name or light. The poor man's house is littered with rubbish, filth, tattered boards, scruffy fences, and peeling paint. The poor man's house is an old-fashioned radio with flowers and a pond, a straight fence, a neat broom, and the subtle sound of a harp, but clear classical music flows.
One, you can be wealthy by keeping the fountain. This is Cheongbin, a fountain keeper, resisting the temptations of famous brands, high-end restaurants, good cars, large refrigerators, and more. Poverty is to not owe to others, to be patient if there is none, and to live within the limits of what you have. Living in the world's fads and living in poverty is poverty.
One, you can become poor by learning the benefits of non-possession. Many possessions cause a lot of trouble. Possession frees people. Christ has no possessions. But how rich have you been? How generous and free were you?
One, you can become wealthy by developing a clear and elegant hobby. Learn how to develop and enjoy clear and cost-effective hobbies, such as studying wild flowers in Korea, regularly climbing a good mountain, reading good books at the library, visiting our cultural heritage, listening to great music, etc. This is Cheongbin.
4. What are the benefits of living in poverty?
In a capitalist society, we value the abundance of possessions as a virtue. But the possession-oriented life destroys its humanity and is always irritable, restless, and restless with an endless sense of competition. It's not a real human life. The Bible says that the kingdom of God does not consist in the abundance of possessions. A life of poverty makes people human. Make sure it doesn't vibrate. do it generously. set you free.
5. Closing Story /
The spiritual life is not a theory. actually try it. Let's live the life of Chungbin. I'm actually living the life of Chungbin recently. I just got a feeling that the taste was quite good. Let's do it all.