Muddy Boots 5: The Beatitudes

Hey, I know this is late and I shall be working to catch up in the next few days but this is the end of the Muddy Boots series with my own view on the beatitudes.

So we've delved through this week with each beatitude taking it's own center stage and now having looked through them all, let us look at them all together.
The beatitudes are the start of Jesus's first teachings on how to live our lives. In many ways He is setting us up already with some hard challenges on how to live our lives already but all is not lost since Jesus spends the rest of His life living out the same beatitudes so that we may know how to. This hopefully comes across with all the Holy Week bits that have been with each beatitude.
Just to recap on the beatitudes:
-Poor in Spirit
-Mourning
-Meekness
-Hunger and thirst for righteousness
-Merciful
-Pure in heart
-Peacemakers
-Persecuted

This is what makes you great in God's eyes. Now I don't know about you but to me, in this world, that wouldn't make a great person. We don't see being pure in heart, persecuted and meek as great, just to combine a few. These qualities are something we tend to see in a few people here and there but what's amazing is that Jesus was not preaching each beatitude to specific people in the crowd following Him. He was preaching this to everyone, these are qualities we all hold and need to nurture for the future. I'm not going to ramble on but it certainly would cause more of a stir for Jesus if we still search for these beatitudes and pray that we can grow in them.

Muddy Boots 4: Peacemakers and Persecuted

Great are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God -Matthew 5:9

So we have made it to the 7th beatitude all about the peacemakers! So what is it really that makes a peacemaker who they are, despite the obvious. Well a peacemaker would be bold, brave and they would confront aggression and aggressors to find a better way of resolving conflict. It is already a tall order for someone but it starts to sound near impossible to think someone could make full peace when during the past 6,000 years of civilization we've only had 292 years of global peace. The odd thing is we see so much war on the news and war is expensive, destructive and devastating one wonders why it continues to prosper. Well Jesus offers us a new way of life, not one of peace but one of the peacemaker.
As with all the beatitudes though Jesus shows us an example of this in Holy Week, leading up to His death Jesus rebuked Peter for using the sword, didn't resist being arrested and in Isaiah it is written that the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him. So the question really is, are we being the peacemaker in our lives?

¹⁰ Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
   for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

   ¹¹ “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. ¹² Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. -Matthew 5:10-12

So the persecuted! We constantly pray for the persecuted church, in the hope that the light of God will not be put out but we never pray that people might meet persecution. In many ways we all want to live a life were we are liked by everyone but we are not, and were never, promised that we would be liked by everyone. In fact when Jesus sent His twelve disciples out He warned them that there would be places where we aren't accepted. We are called to be counter cultural sometimes and our reactions to persecution are definitely one. What is interesting is that this beatitude comes straight after the beatitude about peacemakers, it certainly brings to point that we shouldn't be seeking persecution but rather we are likely to receive persecution in seeking peace.
The Kingdom of Heaven belongs to the persecuted so really when we get abused for seeking and sharing the kingdom of God part of us should rejoice because the reward is great. So are we being asked to stand up for anything by God? Are we being called to be brave and courageous in our lives?

God Bless

P.S: I'm sorry for being two days late with this, I'm attempting to catch up.

Muddy Boots 3: Kind, caring and pure

So if you've bee following my last few posts you'll know my church is doing a series about the beatitudes! It's taken the title Muddy Boots because a metaphor of following Jesus is a walk, and one where you really do get stuck in, or metaphorically get your boots muddy. So today we went through the 4th to 6th beatitudes.
So are we all sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin with beatitude number 4

Great are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled -Matthew 5:6

 I think it is fair to say that in the developed world we never have gone needlessly hungry nor have we ever truly experienced what hunger is. Yes, we've felt empty because we haven't eaten in a while but truly hungry, I doubt it. Yet one third of the world's population go hungry everyday, these people are so desperate for food that they will walk for half a day just to find something to eat. It's that desperation that we should have for righteousness. This isn't just righteousness in doing things right and things in the world being right either, no Jesus is telling us to by right with our relationships as well. That's not saying you should be right all the time but rather that you have the right relationship with people and we should work to make those relationship where we aren't right with people into ones where we are. Now as always with our Christian lives we can't just apply what we learn about relationship to just other humans, and this whole beatitudes also holds true for our relationship with God. We've got to have the right relationship with Him too. This would mean we need to confess our sins daily, that we don't deliberately sin and that between Him and us our mess is out in the open and we don't hide it. Yep it's going to be hard to keep our relationship right with God but it is worth it. Worry not though, God hasn't left us without help. Jesus went to the cross and took on the suffering He did so that we could have that relationship with Him.

Great are those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy - Matthew 5:7

We leave righteousness for the fifth beatitude all about mercy. So what is being merciful? Well quite simply it is letting somebody off for something that they did despite the fact they should be punished for it. Also we could depict mercy as being kind to those who don't like us, as such we bless our enemies and pray for them. Now we certainly aren't alone when it comes to trying to be merciful, in fact we have one of the greatest helpers around to help us, God. Being merciful is difficult but at the same time very good, and I'm pretty sure Ghandi and Martin Luther King would say the same. I recognize Ghandi was not Christian but I'm not using him as a Christian example but as someone who was merciful and would also say it is good to be merciful. How good mercy is, or that God gave it to us, is not what is amazing about it though. What's amazing is the being merciful will create more mercy, so what we, as Christians, should be doing is being merciful to others. This is not so that we can receive mercy in return but rather because we have received mercy from God, we know how to partition it on to others. Again Jesus Himself demonstrates this on the cross itself when He asks the Father to "forgive them for they know not what they do."

Great are those pure in heart, for they will see God - Matthew 5:8

To end, today's Muddy Boots section, the quality of being pure of heart will be looked at. Our hearts are all cleansed when we become Christians and so are pure once more, but that's not what Jesus probably had in mind when He said this line, in fact it's more likely He was talking about an innocent, unadulterated core of being, someone who doesn't actually have a sin to confess to almost every minute of the day. In all honest it's pure hearted people who truly glow with something beautiful, but whats amazing is that we are likely to be drawn more to these people since they just want to bless you and have such a close relationship with God. Jesus lived out a pure heart for us, Hebrews tell us that "we have one who has been tempted in everyway, just as we are - but did not sin."  (Hebrews 4:15) So how's your heart? I know mine's not always in the right place, if that's you let's go to God to get it cleansed once more then.

Again I remind you that all this is great in writing but what we need to start trying to do is living it out, we can't just be super spiritual. In fact, you may look at some of those and say "I can't do that" or "that isn't me" but Jesus wasn't saying each beatitude to just a specific group each time but rather they are all qualities we can possess.
So together, let's get the shoes gave us to wear muddy with the muck of life and come out stronger on the other side!

God Bless

Muddy Boots 2: Mourn and Meek

So today the 2nd and the 3rd beatitudes were spoken about. So we'll go through them in order.
The 2nd beatitudes is "Great are those who mourn, for they will be comforted" - Matthew 5:4.
Now here is where it gets interesting, the word mourn is used in the sense of grieving over the dead, or rather being sorrowful for the way things are. So the question is what makes us sad? Obvious answers to sound like real people are injustice, abuse, immorality and violence but the first thing that crossed my mind was the sin still inside me and that's where the challenge lies in this beatitude, not to just be sorrowful for the sins that are global but to also mourn for the sins we commit, whether in thought, speech or deed. Since when we reach that point of utter, deep sorrow for our sins God comforts us. It is when we are in that desolate place that we are driven into the arms of our Creator and He is there for us. See I am constantly hearing that we should not be afraid of our sin and let it control us because of what Jesus Christ did on the cross but we take that too far sometimes and so start to feel less towards the fact we are sinning. Yet we shouldn't be in fact every sin we commit should shake our world and we should really be sorrowful for each one we commit. Now I'll be the first to put my hand up and say "That's really difficult" and it is but since when was following Jesus going to be easy? Jesus himself gave us an example of this sorrow during Holy Week, He was filled with sorrow in Gethsemane as He came to recognize the sins of the world resting on His shoulder and He was in mourning for each and every one of them. Jesus has been throw the same sorrow we should be going through and He knows what it means, but what we need to ask ourselves and challenge ourselves with is whether or not we'll allow the Holy Spirit to show us our sin again.

The 3rd beatitude is this "Great are the meek, for they will inherit the earth" -Matthew 5:5
Meek does not mean weak or not brave, in fact it is more along the lines of not arrogant but the word meek in the original text has a close meaning to the "broken" as in "broken in." This means it is more in line with us channeling our strength for someone other than ourselves, parallels with a broken in horse. For us as Christians that person is Jesus. Our strength should be channeled solely for Jesus Christ's agenda. In fact one could say that to be meek we must be strong, we are strong because to determinedly seek out and act on somebody else's agenda means disregarding our own desires and following theirs. Yet if we can truly submit to God and follow His agenda, if we can be meek and follow Christ then we have such a high place in the Kingdom. This doesn't mean that we should be meek in order to achieve that high place, because that would be adhering to our own agenda but in fact we should be meek in order to align ourselves with God's will more. If you want an example of someone who is truly meek then look no further than Mother Teresa, she gave up her own life to minister God's will to the poor and because of the fact she followed what God wanted she had an amazing life!
If you want to look further then look at Jesus, He prayed that God's will be done not his. In fact He taught us to pray that God's will be done on earth, check the Lord's prayer if you don't believe me, but a lot of us have started to lose that meaning in our own personal relationship with Him. We want to see God come to earth and have a relationship with everyone but we sometimes don't want to be the person who'll share Him with others and so let other's do it instead. We don't submit to that will within our personal lives. So I encourage and challenge you to pray the Lord's prayer with new meaning, with fresh intention and with your heart.

So be mournful and meek, but don't just feel mournful and meek but do something about it. To use a common place phrase "walk the walk, don't just talk the talk." Wear the shoes God has given you and stride out in them, don't stand still afraid of that first step.

God Bless

Muddy Boots 1: Poor in Spirit

My church is doing a short series this week on the beatitudes. They are calling it Muddy Boots and the reasons behind the picture are good. It's denoting a journey that we take, we are trying to follow Jesus as best we can. We usually describe it as a marathon for how long it is, but what about a long trek up a muddy slope? Well that's the point of the picture, we are always gunning for how long and constantly we must battle that we fail really to recognize how hard we must battle as well, and the fact is a good pair of muddy boots has always seen us through those long, hard treks and will there for the next. The same with our souls that Jesus resides in, He will always be there through our hard situations and prepared to stand in for us during the next one. In many ways it reminds me of the story of the footprints in the sand.

So yes we are all on a journey, any journey s not easy but the destination is great when we get there, whether we run the whole time, jog or walk it's a destination we seek. Jesus undertook His own journey here on earth during which He was misunderstood, persecuted and suffered, but because of all this He received life, power and authority over the world. What about us? Aren't we heading towards something similar? Well it's likely since we are co-heirs with Christ but I'll get into that another time.

So this first bit is all about the beatitudes, Jesus major sermon really in His lie and one which really does teach people what it is to follow Christ. The beatitudes themselves all start with the phrase "Blessed are.." which can be translated to "Happy are..", "Contented are..." or "Great are..." So really the beatitudes are all about how these people are great in God's eyes. 

Blessed are the poor in Spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven -Matthew 5:3

So great are those who are poor in Spirit in God's eyes. Well that sounds easy, reject the Spirit. No wait before you leave thinking that's the message keep reading. It's not wanting to not have a small amount of Spirit that makes us great in God's eyes, it's recognizing we don't have enough Spirit and constantly wanting more that does. Now this clashes with the idea that we are constantly filled, so why would we need more and thereby want more? Well here is how I see it, like a glass full of water you are filled up but there's a waterfall over that cup keeping it topped up, now you can be happy with your cup or you can constantly seek larger containers so that you can hold more Spirit. We have to realize that the cup of the Spirit isn't enough and constantly seek a  larger container. That's what is so great about the poor of the Spirit, it's not the fact they are poor of it since we all are compared to God but it is that they know they are and because of that fact they desperately want more. The aren't all together with their life, they aren't satisfied with their spiritual growth and they know they are in spiritual poverty and so want to grow more and receive the Spirit more.
See it doesn't make sense for Jesus to open the beatitudes with this line if it weren't for the fact it's where we have to start. We can't grow without the Spirit, so we need to realize we need the Spirit so we can search more. Jesus certainly isn't sitting there going "Follow me and be depressed" because He wouldn't reach anyone with a message like that, what He is proclaiming to the people of Isreal, and throughout time, is "Desire more of God!" That is the message He is giving us and in fact apart from "Repent of your sins" is the first thing we find out Jesus tells people in Matthew's gospel. Isn't that kind of representative of our calling as Christians, first we repent of our sins and ask God's forgiveness and thank Him for it through Jesus Christ and then we want to know God more! I'm writing this and I know in my mind I believe I've failed at this and I don't want to read the Bible as much as I used to nor do I try and learn about God, Jesus, having them in my life and sharing them with others as much as I could or should and after today I want to.
So the challenge really is to our lives of content, that we should be happy with our identity in Christ but not be happy with where we are in getting to know Christ and God. We should have a "holy discontent" for how  contented we are with our lives and crave to know God more that we do. In the words of David in psalm 63:

¹ You, God, are my God, 

   earnestly I seek you; 

I thirst for you, 

   my whole being longs for you, 

in a dry and parched land 

   where there is no water. 

That's where are attitude to God should lie, that's where my attitude to God should lie. We should be feeling desperate for God. God went so far as to set the example Himself in Jesus Christ during the time leading up to His death, Jesus was desperately seeking for God to get close to Him once more, to be closer than He was already. He was distraught at the idea of being even slightly separated from Him that He was shouting for God asking Him why He had let Him go, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me" He cried trying to find God once more. So why does my heart not always do the same, possibly because I've never sat at the Father's right hand but that's probably not the main reason why because I've experience God's glory on the day I chose to follow Him and whenever I truly connect with it all. It's mostly likely because of the content life we live in the western world. I've never gone hungry for more than an hour, worried about what's in the water, had to support my family from a young age. My life is blessed and so I currently don't understand what it means to desperately seek something, and I doubt many of us do understand it properly as well. Yet there are people who do, in fact in places where they really do depend on God for their day to day lives revival is being seen. Heidi Baker, an author, works with the poor in Mozambique and she is quoted as saying this:

Why is God pouring the Spirit of revival in to Mozambique? Because they are poor in Spirit, dependent on God for everything due to their situation.

We need to remember how impoverished we are spiritually and really search to become rich in the Spirit in the west. Nicky Gumbel says "Precisely when we feel this desperate, we come under the reign of God." I would like to challenge the people reading this to not want revival in your cities but to crave it. I think because we only want to see God in this city is exactly why we haven't. We need to start craving revival, desperately seeking God and desperately introducing Him to people. I hear a lot of people say they can't wait for the second coming, and, yeah, neither can I but I also don't want it to happen because at the moment there are a lot of people I want to see saved who aren't. So I should be searching to introduce God to these people more often and just crave to see God work in places. God will meet us in our most desperate places so why not be constantly desperate to know about God more and be filled  with the Spirit more?

Being poor in Spirit is the beginning of the road to greatness.

God Bless.

P.S: sorry for the length, it's my own thoughts mixed in with a talk.