The Poor in Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God. – Matt 5:3

What’s good about poverty? In the physical aspect of life, poverty is not great, but spiritually, Jesus desired that his followers be poor in spirit. But why? Perhaps, poverty works out humility in man, perhaps it is in the state of poverty and lack, that one can truly reflect on the verities of life. Perhaps in the embers of dearth lies the desire for growth. 

On the other hand, the splendors of riches and wealth far too often make people proud. And God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. There is such a strong reason why the Lord spoke of how hard or impossible it is for the rich to inherit the kingdom of heaven.  

Not that God does not want his children to be prosperous, far from it. He is the one that gives us power to make wealth. The apostle John desired above all things that God’s children should prosper and be in good health. A similar principle is evident when it comes to knowledge. We can only come to faith through the knowledge of God via faith of course. But the apostle Paul remarked that Knowledge puffs up, it very easily does, nevertheless, God wants us to acquire knowledge, most importantly the knowledge of God which produces faith, righteousness, joy, peace, and the like. To acquire knowledge or wealth, one must first recognize the need to do so and then pursue it.

So, let’s look again at that spiritual poverty in the same light. Poverty of the spirit produces humility; it helps one to recognize one’s need for the saviour. It brings about a strong yearning to be filled. If we believe that we are filled with the spirit and the word of God already, it may become difficult to yearn for more, not that it is impossible.

Jesus was very clear when he spoke about poverty of the spirit, showing it to be a desirable trait. We must all aim for it; we must do everything to recognise our spiritual poverty that should in turn produce a yearning to be filled by God. It should produce the humility that makes one surrender to the all-powerful and mighty hand of God. It is in this position of absolute surrender that ordinary men become one with God in spirit. It is what helps in the renewal of the mind; what helps us understand that we cannot achieve any remarkable thing by ourselves. It is what God truly desires, that is, all of Him and none of self.

Being poor in spirit produces a yearning that God longs to meet. God longs for us to yearn for him, to desire for him in a way that we totally forget about who we are but embrace who he wants us to be, one with God in spirit, body, and soul. For that to happen, we can only always pray that God himself will daily inspire us to yearn for him and to humble ourselves before him, to attain this lofty spiritual height.

He Promised ALL Things

In 2 Pet 1:3, the apostle Peter spoke of the divine power of God having given us ALL things that pertain to life and godliness. The apostle Paul echoed a similar message in his writing to the Romans in chapter 8 verse 32. He said that if God did not spare his own Son but gave him up to die for us, that he will also through his son give us ALL things. Little wonder Paul himself proclaimed that he could do ALL things through Christ who strengthens him when he wrote to the Philippians.

The keyword throughout these statements is ALL. Not some, not many, not few but ALL things are promised. That is a precious promise of a never-failing God. One who would rather see the earth come to an end to avoid the unfulfillment of his word; and yes, he is that serious. He is the one that is reliable, capable and specialises in the impossible.

Despite ALL these promises, it can sometimes become difficult to appropriate the blessings to ourselves.  And that happens mostly because we do not possess the prerequisite for receiving the promise – faith.

One element within these promises that is important to note is that all these promises are to be experienced through the knowledge of the word of God. Because faith comes through the knowledge of God. When we build our faith to the point of taking God by his words even when our present physical experiences or circumstances do not align with the word of God, then we start our journey towards receiving the blessings that come with the promises.

The fact that God makes his promises with a very strong and certain language without mincing words or trying to give caveats is really interesting. When he says he has given us everything we need for life and godliness, do we believe it when our situations are not aligning or when we are not seeing physical evidence to support that assertion? What about when he talks about giving us everything? Does he really mean it? What does everything or ALL things really mean? What does it include? Is it just eternal life? What about material things?

You see, we can discuss all the what abouts or what-ifs. It won’t change the fact that those certain statements of promises were made. To experience them, we need to reflect on our lives and our ways to make sure that we are in tune with God, to ensure that we are obedient to his words and that we are seeking him with all our hearts. Because whoever seeks God with all their hearts will find him. Instead of asking the what abouts or what-ifs, we should be looking inward and surrendering ourselves to him, to allow him to use us, to allow him to direct and guide us through his words. When we do this, we will be well on our way to enjoying the blessings of the promises.

Victory in Christ

It was only yesterday that the Victory in Europe Day – VE Day was celebrated to commemorate the end of the second world war when fighting against Nazi Germany in Europe came to an end following Germany’s surrender the day before. On this day in 1945, people in Britain and in America poured into the streets to celebrate.

Victory is always celebrated and never or perhaps very scarcely is defeat ever celebrated. Victory brings with it all kinds of euphoria. Little wonder everyone wants to be successful, because we all want to feel that sense of accomplishment in whatever endeavour. As we know that victory isn’t only applicable to winning during a war situation. Victory extends to winning in life, whether in our careers or educational endeavour or family/social life. We like to celebrate and tell the world about our successes and scarcely our defeats.

Therefore, every right-thinking person wants to be successful or victorious in everything in life. How do we succeed or win our battles? What do we class as victory amidst the myriad of challenges in life? As much as different people value different things and fight different battles. We know that for every battle, there are mostly two possible outcome, victory or defeat and no one wants the latter. But what if there was a way to win every battle or war. War in this context refers to the social, economic, and personal endeavours that we all undertake or even the challenges that life throws at us.

There is a formula that guarantees victory and that is found in no other source than God in Christ. If we are born of God, we have victory; that is to say we can overcome the world and every possible thing that life may throw at us.

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 1 John 5:4-5

This victory that overcomes the challenges in the world is our faith. Faith in the risen Christ; faith in the love of God and in his power to save those who are willing and obedient. True victory is obtained not in looking at the troubles and trials that surround us but in looking to the perfect law of liberty and finding hope and strength amidst the trials to know that the one who promised victory will never desert his own.

A story is told in the bible of a people who were to go to battle with a mighty kingdom of whom they had no chance of winning on their own. The king knew that and he went to God and prayed. In the end, God took over the battle and they obtained victory without lifting a sword.

As much as every battle is different, we may have to lift our own sword to strike sometimes, but each battle needs a strategy. There is no one-size fits all strategy except one thing: taking everything to God in prayer. You see, God has guaranteed us victory in dealing with life’s challenges and curveballs. We can draw strength from his promises and have faith because we know who has promised. Even as we are currently fighting a global pandemic, we should not lose sight of our victory in Christ. It is important to remember that this also shall pass and that God is our shield and buckler, that even though the mountain be lifted into the sea, we do not have any reason to fear but give thanks and anticipate victory.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Cor 15:57

Bought with a Price

For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s. 1 Cor 6:20

To buy an item, ownership is transferred from one person to another upon payment of an agreed price. Upon full payment, and transfer of ownership, the previous owner can no longer lay claim to such item and the buyer becomes the sole owner of such an item. Which means, the new owner can do as he pleases with his new item. You think about walking into an electronic shop to buy an electronic gadget, it becomes yours upon payment of the agreed price. You use it as and when you please. The devices cannot claim to own itself, it cannot refuse to work when you so desire it to, except of course, when it is broken.

This is quite synonymous with what the apostle Paul revealed in 1 Cor 6:20. He showed that Christians are bought with a price – the precious blood of Jesus. The significance of the price is enormous. There is nothing on earth that could have sufficiently bought us except the blood of a spotless lamb. No one on earth could have paid the price. Before Christ, there were substitute prices that needed to be paid or renewed yearly – the blood of animals. This process was not perfect, it meant working too hard, it still was not enough. That price was not in comparison with the nature of the human condition. It was insufficient to completely buy back humanity. Therefore, there was only one solution – the blood of the spotless lamb. But why is the price blood? Why is there any need for purchase?

Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed on to all men, because all sinned. – Rom 5:12

Well, sin had entered the world through one man, Adam. This introduced a different dynamic to the equation of life because the wages of sin is death, the price or sacrifice needed to avoid the consequence of sin is the shedding of blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins (Heb 9:22). It is not just any blood; as the blood of animals was not sufficient, that of mere mortals could not suffice either because all men have sinned. Because God is a just God, the result of the fall of man was death, a very heavy price that man himself could not pay. There was no way that humanity could pay for its own sins. Therefore we became broken, needing a saviour; one who cannot be one of us; we needed someone outside ourselves to help us. This is very important to appreciate because we cannot attend the standard of righteousness that God requires. And so no one can really claim that he is a “good person”, who does not steal, kill or commit any atrocious acts and for that reason will be accepted by God without receiving the free gift of redemption. You see, God is a loving father, so he took it upon himself to pay that price to reclaim or redeem us for himself. We could not do it on our own, not in a million years and this is one of the greatest reasons to be thankful to God.

That is why it is important to always remember that we were bought with a price, and this comes with a responsibility to serve our buyer. Just like an electronic device serves the one who buys it, we ought to serve our buyer. We ought to remember that we are to keep our bodies clean and devoid of anything that defiles it. And glory God with our body and spirit which having been bought now belongs to God.

It is quite imperative that we remember this and not fall into the snare of thinking like some do –that we own ourselves and can do whatever we want to do and nobody should dare to question our actions. Because the interesting thing that our buyer did was to put us into a community where we are encouraged to be our brothers’ keepers – that is, to encourage each other to be better so that when one person goes astray, the other person brings them back into the path of grace and vice versa. Is it not amazing, the wisdom of God to put this self-checking mechanism, something we ought to be proud of; something we need to celebrate and not through tantrums when we are corrected. In fact, we ought to be thankful when someone corrects us in love. And we should help each other in this regard.

Having bought us with a price, we ought to provide value for “money” to our buyer by glorifying him and helping each other along the way.

THE HOLY SPIRIT YEARNS JEALOUSLY

Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? – James 4:5

Look at the two words, yearn (or lust) and jealous. Should they be attributable to the holy spirit given that they seem to portray negativity? Well, the scripture tells us that the spirit of God yearns or lusts after us. But why? To show the degree or measure of the desire of the spirit to keep hold of us. Because the day one decides to turn one’s back on the devil and follow Christ and seek to live for him alone, one makes an enemy. And the enemy then roams about seeking every opportunity to recruit such a one to himself. It is a constant battle of attrition. The same way the spirit yearns for us, the devil also yearns. But who wins the battle is up to us. We decide who we yield to, as we are the centre of attention. How fascinating to know that there is a constant battle for our hearts. That means we are so important, to have two powers fighting for our attention but then we have all the power to chose whom to yield to. What makes the choice interesting is that one leads to life and one to destruction and so you could say, the choice is simple. Well perhaps it is not so simple because each party uses different strategies to woo us. The devil entices us with pleasures of this world, but the spirit encourages and constrains us to think more about the things that are above.

Every Christian who has been called by God has been given the Holy Spirit upon baptism, the Spirit therefore indwells and becomes a Christian’s guide. What a wonderful opportunity to have God dwelling inside us. How much more unique can it be described other than to say that Christians are “carriers of God”. Or perhaps it should be said that Christians are representatives of God. Which means that when anyone sees a Christian, he should be said to have seen God in the flesh. Yes, because we bear the mark of the Lord.

What does it then portend for the individual? Well, it means that the individual is powerful – not of himself of course, but because of the power of God that dwells within. This same power is the power that raised Jesus Christ from the death. It is the promise that Jesus made when he was on earth, that he will pray the father to send a comforter that will be with his followers when he has departed and that he, the spirit will reveal all truth.

This power helps our infirmities – when we do not know how to pray, the spirit intercedes on our behalf (Rom 8:26) and “arranges” our prayers or groanings according to the will of God so that it can be answered; because we ought to pray for the will of God to be done and it will be done all the time.

Another interesting thing that the spirit does by dwelling in us is seen in Rom 8:11.

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life [revitalize, make alive, quicken] to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. 

You see, the spirit gives live to our mortal bodies. And this is not about giving life to our bodies during the second coming of Jesus, but the scripture here alludes to the fact that the spirit, if it dwells in us, is a vehicle through which God will give life to our bodies. Notice that the life is given through the spirit and that there is a condition attached, if the spirit dwells in you. A Christian who has this indwelling spirit has life, literally. Perhaps it is also worth noting that the other meaning of the Greek word translated, give life is to revitalize the mortal body. To revitalize is to rejuvenate, or revive or regenerate; therefore, if a body has degenerated by virtue of disease or anything, the spirit is the one through which one’s mortal body is regenerated or revived or made alive again.

Different spiritual gifts for believers are handed out through the same spirit that indwells in us. (1 Cor 12:4 – There are different kinds of gifts. But they are all given to believers by the same Spirit).

Isn’t it awesome to have such power and gifts imbued through the spirit? Of course, it is. But that is the very reason why the devil wars against this spirit, so that the child of God may not fully understand nor be made alive through the spirit and his gifts. The scripture makes it clear that the spirit wars against the flesh;

So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to one another, so that you do not do what you want. – Gal 5:16-17

Little wonder John said that the spirit is jealous. It is jealous and envious of any of his hosts who chooses to be a friend of the world, because that makes one an enemy of God.

So, to whomever you yield yourself, you become his servant whether to God or to the devil. The good news is that the spirit lusts after his own. Jesus portrays God as one who leaves the ninety-nine and looks after the one. He also said that anyone who turns back to God brings about a great rejoicing in heaven. God is always looking out for his own, he is always beckoning on his own to choose him or return to him if they had strayed.

Therefore, when the spirit yearns, it means that the spirit intensely wants to keep possession of us, the spirit wants to have us all to himself, he gravely desires us to be his, so that he may use us. He yearns and lusts after us to the point of jealousy so that the glory of God might be seen in us, so that his purpose for our lives may be fulfilled.