Title Whose Is Heaven? Matthew 5:1-12
Contents There is a representative text in the Bible that most accurately describes the spiritual blessings of the kingdom of heaven. This is the Beatitudes that Jesus gave in the Sermon on the Mount in today's text. The eight blessings mentioned in the Beatitudes on the Mount are all precious blessings. However, if you look closely at those 8 blessings, you will find that they are repeated twice. It is the first blessing in verse 3, “For theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” and the eighth blessing in verse 10, “theirs is the kingdom of heaven”.
There is an important principle of Bible meditation. It says, “Notice repeated words or phrases!” The fact that it is repeated twice in the Bible, where there is no word to be thrown away, means that the word is that important. In other words, the most important blessing among the Beatitudes on the Mount is “the blessing of possessing the kingdom of heaven.”
“The blessing of possessing the kingdom of heaven” is the first and the last of the Beatitudes, which means that the highest blessing in the same position as the alpha and omega of blessing is the “blessing of possessing the kingdom of heaven.” Who Can Own Heaven?
1. the poor in spirit
Look at verse 3 of the text. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Those who are poor in spirit do not refer to those who are materially poor. A person who is poor in spirit lives with the confession that “without the Lord, I cannot live even for a moment”, thinking more about the problems of the soul than the problems of the body.
Man is made up of body and soul. We should cherish the problems of the body, but we should cherish the problems of the soul even more. We need food, clothing, and shelter for our bodies, but what is more important is the grace of God given to our souls. Man does not live by bread alone, but by the word and grace of God.
To which soul is God's grace given? Above all, God's grace is given to the poor and humble in spirit. Such a humble heart will possess heaven. Why was the devil cast out of heaven? Because they were trying to usurp God's place. So, the life that is the most opposite to the life in heaven is the life of Satan, and the essence of the life of Satan is the proud life. Therefore, no matter what happens, we must cast away our proud heart.
The prayer topic that is most precious to us is not a prayer topic for our children, nor is it a prayer topic for dreams and visions to come true. Above all else, the first thing you should have is a prayer topic, “God! Give me a poor soul!” is the prayer title. If we do not become poor in spirit, we will not receive God's grace, and our relationships will eventually be broken. If you lose your poor soul, you will eventually lose everything.
If you do not become poor in spirit, you will lose the thrill of worship. If you are poor in spirit, you will miss Sunday worship from Monday, and you will come out 30 minutes before the start of the worship service and prepare for the worship service in prayer. If you are poor in spirit, no matter how hard you eat, you will not be tempted. It doesn't hurt either. Even if it is a word that seriously hurts my self-esteem, I gladly accept it and fix myself. How blessed are you?
In the morning, if you go to the morning prayer a little later, you meet someone. It's the newspaper runner. They roam so many places at dawn every single day to solve the problem of food, clothing and shelter. The same goes for cleaning people. However, more than 90% of the saints spend the morning hours sleeping. Seeing such a situation, we come to realize that the most urgent thing for us is to become poor in spirit for the problems of the soul, which are more important than the problems of the body.
Humans seem strong, but they are very fragile beings. A wise person is someone who knows that he is lacking even if he has not learned enough. On the other hand, a person who, no matter how much he has learned, does not realize that he is lacking, is a fool. Therefore, the higher you are, the more humble you should be. Then you will be given a wonderful helping hand in difficult times, and heaven will never be taken away.
2. Those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness
Look at verses 10-12 of the text. “Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Blessed are you when they curse and persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Your reward is great, for in this way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”
Among the Beatitudes of Jesus, this last blessing is especially emphasized by the Lord. It emphasizes how great blessings can be prepared by being persecuted for the sake of righteousness.
If we try to live according to righteousness, there will always be persecution. If you do righteousness in an unrighteous world, persecution will follow in nature. Therefore, we believers should take it for granted that there will be persecution. When you are persecuted, do not get hurt, do not think that your life is over, and do not become discouraged, complain and complain. The more we suffer persecution, the more we become the owners of the kingdom of heaven, so the Lord told us to rejoice the more we suffer.
The persecution of the saints is the best way to blessing. Persecution is a process that leads to blessing, not the final result. Also, when the Lord said, “Rejoice and rejoice when there is persecution!” This is a word implying that the persecution of the saints is not unbearable persecution, but persecution that can be endured. is. Therefore, when persecution and hardship come, you should be able to think immediately, “You are now blessed!” instead of thinking, “You are dead!”
The ultimate purpose of our life of faith is heaven. In order to obtain that kingdom of heaven, we must not be afraid of being persecuted for the sake of righteousness. There are many kinds of persecution for those who want to lead a good life of faith. Of course, there should be no persecution because the saints do not act wisely. So, although you have to be wise like a snake, sometimes you should not be afraid of being persecuted for your faith and tomorrow's blessings.
There is a more terrifying persecution than such external persecution for believers. It is persecution due to ‘self-indolence’. When I live my life of faith, I sometimes think of myself like this. "Hey! tired. Let's not go to prayer this morning! Hey! Let's take a break from evangelism this week! Let's do a sermon this week, roughly what we did last time!" In this way, self-indulgence, which comes constantly, blocks spiritual work. The really terrible persecution is that kind of persecution.
It is not your husband, parents, or any neighbors who persecute you the most when you are living your faith. It is a body that seeks its own pleasure. When the body constantly persecutes and shakes one's faith and conscience, saying, “Let's have fun,” we must shun the pleasures of the flesh and strive for spiritual work. To such a person, the Lord promises, “The kingdom of heaven is ours.”
One day, there was a presidential election in ephemera society. After fierce competition, a ephemera became president. So what do you do when you become president? After all, it is a life that will fall off after a day. However, in the time of eternity, our life is the same as a ephemera. Therefore, rather than dreaming of being the president of this world with our lives, we should dream of becoming the president of heaven.
The life that God has given us is the one-time life that God has given us to prepare for the reward of heaven. We must make good use of this life and become the heroes of heaven. In particular, like the two words given today, we must not be arrogant under any circumstances, face persecution for the sake of the gospel, and work harder to expand the kingdom of God. Through such a life of faith, I hope that you will become blessed spirits who possess the kingdom of heaven.