For His Honor

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.” Matthew 5:8 NIV

Pure in heart. Jesus is talking in this verse about our heart, our motives, our attitude, our desires. These are all inner matters, matters of the heart. What He is not talking about is what the world sees when they look at us, our outer being. As with the rest of the Beatitudes, the idea of pure in heart revolves around our inner being.

When we change only on the outside, we are fooling ourselves. Going to church, wearing nice clothes, tithing and making sure that others see it, these are all outward actions and do not ensure that the inward action of change in our hearts has occurred. When we are pure in heart, our motives are to please God, align with His will, and then do His will. When we are solely changing on the outside, we are hoping to please others, aligning with the will of others.

If someone is only going to church because their parent or spouse has nagged them enough, or if a person wants to impress another person in their lives by tithing weekly at church, then they are doing this to please someone else, not God. It is not pleasing to God that they are doing it so that others believe they have changed. If that is the reason why they have changed, then they have already received whatever reward, the approval of the other person, that they are going to receive.

Being pure in heart is hard. We have to die to self daily and sometimes almost hourly because our fleshly desires are not pure and therefore not pleasing to God. As humans we cannot do this alone, we are not strong enough to remove the grip that sin has on our hearts. The only way to be pure in heart is by having God clean us, which occurs when we acknowledge Jesus as the Son of God, accept that He died to set us free and confess that He is our Lord and Savior.

Once we have decided to follow Jesus, the process can begin of cleaning our hearts. It is a long process because our enemy, the devil, does not like it when we choose Jesus over him. He then turns up the heat and tries to give us reasons to stay connected to our sin. I encourage us all to be pure in heart, be connected to Jesus and not the enemy.

The second part of the verse states that the pure in heart will see God. When Jesus frees us from the chains of sin and we begin to make the changes we need to make to be more like Jesus, we begin to see the world differently. We can see God in the trees, flowers, a fawn, a child’s face. We begin to see God all around us because He created all of it, the earth, the plants, the animals and especially the child. When we then turn to His word, we are able to see Him, begin to draw closer to Him.

This idea of being pure in heart is a lot to change, so what if as you go through your day today, you pick one area to examine. If you decide to pick your motives for doing things, for example, then look at why you do or say the things you do or say. What is the reason behind your action or what do you hope to accomplish by saying what you say. When we dig deep into our motives, we reveal what we really want and who we are, if we are brave enough to take an honest look.

So do you want to make outward changes for the world to see and be only partly changed or do you want to make the inward changes that truly count and make the changes that will bring you closer to God? The choice is yours and yours alone.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy. Matthew 5:7 NIV

What is mercy? Mercy is not giving someone something that they deserve, such as a police officer not writing a ticket to a driver who was speeding. When was the last time you were shown mercy? When did someone withhold a punishment that you should have received or showed you compassion?

The wonderful thing about mercy to me is that is costs you nothing to give and you receive in return the gift of knowing that you have given another person a chance to then go and show mercy to someone else. You do not tend to give mercy as freely to others if you yourself have not received mercy at some point. A person who has not received mercy has a hard time fully understanding the gift that mercy truly is for the person who receives it.

A person who has received mercy themselves is typically quicker to give mercy to others because they know what relief mercy brings. This has a wonderful circle effect in that we receive mercy so we show mercy which can then result in us receiving mercy again from a different source. Mercy is a component of love and since God is love, it is no surprise that mercy is a gift from God. He has been so merciful to us over the years, think of all the times He withheld punishment from all of us, but the most merciful moment was when He sent His son to pay for OUR transgressions.

God didn’t have to send Jesus. Jesus didn’t have to come down. Jesus didn’t have to let the Roman guards nail Him to that cross. He didn’t have to pay the ultimate price for us so that we did not have to spend eternity separated from God in a place of damnation. He didn’t have to do any of that, but that is exactly what He did. He showed us mercy. Jesus showing mercy for all of us, laid down on that cross and gave His life so we would all be able to choose freedom from the bondage of sin.

Have you made that choice? The choice to be free from the chains of sin. Have you accepted that gift filled with mercy from God? I beg you to come to Jesus if you have not already. Come, accept and be free from the power that sin has over you.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Matthew 5:6 NIV

We all know what it feels like to be hungry and thirsty, I mean really hungry and thirsty. The almost unquenchable need to either have food to eat or water to drink. This is the level of hunger and thirst that Jesus is talking about in this verse. However, He is not talking about food and water, He is talking about righteousness.

Righteousness, not only in the sense of holiness, but also in the sense of behaving the way Jesus behaved. Loving others, treating others correctly, being in the right kind of relationship with others, being at peace. This verse is talking about a personal code of conduct that imitates Jesus. He lived in such a way that rendered He strange to the people of His time. He was kind when others were mean, He was generous when others were stingy, He was loving when others were hateful. He lived according to God’s will, not according to the way the world states that He should have lived.

He demonstrated throughout His entire life that this sense of righteousness, being righteous in God’s sight also included about how He treated others because in God’s kingdom, relationships are very important. This righteousness is not about personal gain, as this world would have us believe, but about having the right attitude, an attitude of humility. For example, the idea of things being right or righteous in our communities becomes more important than which person is helping to get that done.

The second half of the verse states that those who are seeking and searching after righteousness will be filled. They will be filled with righteousness because they are living a Godly life, a life modeled after Jesus. When we seek after God’s will and do our best to follow God’s will then we will be satisfied because God fills our hearts with Him. He is the only way to stop the longing for that personal relationship with our Creator because He is our Creator, who we long to be connected to.

Do you hunger and thirst for self promotion. self-gratifying achievements or do you hunger and thirst for God? Today I encourage you to look at what you are chasing after and determine if it is the worldly things or if it is the Godly way.

Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5 NIV

This verse has always been interesting to me because I feel like the meek have gotten a bad rap. To be meek is to be gentle, to be someone who has an easy going disposition. Our society has twisted the concept of meek to be a weak person who lets everyone walk all over them. The world presents that people need to be angry all the time and be the first one to hurt the other person so you have some control over how a relationship is going to go. This is all sad to me.

In the economy of God’s kingdom, peace is valued, gentleness is valued and maintaining one’s composure is valued. Meekness is responding to persecution, injury, insults or hurt of any kind without anger and without wanting to get revenge. A meek person is a person who is quiet minded and peaceful. Meekness patiently waits for God to provide justice in the situation. When we are able to be meek towards each other, we are better able to surrender to God, to be meek in His presence, knowing He is in control.

The second part of the verse talks about the meek inheriting the earth. Inheriting blessings was a very special occurrence in the Jewish custom. For someone to inherit something it meant that there was special significance in regards to the item as well as the person who was receiving it. The meaning of the inheritance of the earth is not the earth as it is now or was then, but how it will be once Jesus returns. He is going to bring His kingdom down on to the earth, it will be a renewed earth that is the way it was supposed to be in the time of Eden.

Jesus was considered meek. It didn’t mean that He never got angry but it meant that He was able to regain His composure and actions quickly so that He could return to being at peace. I have recently, over the past few years, truly embraced being at peace and I can tell you that I do not like it when I lose that peace. It is such as wonderful, freeing feeling that I want to be at peace or in a peaceful mindset all the time.

As a Christian we strive to be like Jesus on a daily basis, and since Jesus was meek, I believe that one of the traits we should strive to have is one of meekness. Have you ever tried to be at peace for even an hour? If you have then you understand what an amazing feeling that is and that you don’t want to give it up. As you go through your day today, I encourage you to practice quieting your mind, sitting in peace and embracing meekness.

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 NIV

In this first chapter of the book of Joshua, we learn that Moses has died, and Joshua has been made the new leader. God’s plans for the Israelites of entering the promised land do not change because Moses has died. The leader changes but the plans do not. Joshua, having been close to Moses, knows what the role of leading the Israelites entails. As he was one of the original multitude that escaped Egypt, he only knew Moses as his leader during the 40 years that the Israelites wandered around the desert and now he is dead. He is therefore understandably anxious or nervous about his new role.

In the verse for today we read about God talking with Joshua and telling him that he is to be courageous and not courageous because God is sending him off to get done what is being asked of him while God does something else, but courageous because he is NOT going alone, God is with him. God had been with the Israelites throughout the entire 40 years that they wandered and He wasn’t going to leave now.

Yesterday the congregation at my church received a new leader. The new pastor spoke about going into the unknown and how even with the unknown being uncomfortable at times and possibly scary, that we need not feel alone, because God is with us. God is with us and her as we start this new journey together to worship God, to invite others into God’s family and to follow God’s will for each one of us.

As you encounter new situations, do you often feel alone or do you cling to God because you know that He is with you always? We all have times when we face the unknown, and each one of us has to make a choice about how we are going to move forward. Are we going to allow fear to stop us in our tracks or are we going to be courageous knowing that God is with us always. The choice is yours.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Matthew 5:4 NIV

When I think of mourning, I think of how you respond when you lose a loved one to death or you lose a friendship. So, when I read the verse for today, my mind goes to the question ‘How can someone who is mourning be blessed?’ The reason for the mourning in the Beatitudes is not the common reason of mourning over a lose due to death.

In the Beatitudes Jesus is referring to mourning as being the attitude a Christian holds in their heart towards sin. As a sinner who does not know Christ, a person who has sinned may feel bad about what they have done, or they may not. If they do feel bad about their sin, it may be that they feel bad for hurting someone’s feelings or for lying to someone. People who are not born-again do feel sorry for behaving in ways that hurt others or they deem to be wrong.

However as a Christian, the attitude that we hold in our hearts towards sin goes deeper than simply feeling bad for committing the sin. The attitude is not about getting caught after having committed the sin, it is more about the sorrow we feel because we have now placed a barrier between us and God. God cannot and does not look at sin, so once we have sinned, we have made the choice to place that sin between us and God. We have moved away from our Lord and Savior.

As God’s children, separating ourselves from Him causes us pain and grief over the lose of that closeness we have when we are not sinning and placing barriers between us and God. Our sin also causes God pain and grief. He doesn’t want us to be separated from Him or He wouldn’t have sent Jesus in the first place. He wants us close to Him but He won’t be close to sin. Once we realize that the deep pain and grief we are feeling over our sin is about having grieved God, having sinned against Him, then we can be moved to the point of going to God and asking for forgiveness.

The second half of the verse states that those who mourn will be comforted. The level of comfort that is needed to relieve this type of pain and grief only comes from God. It cannot come from anyone else or anywhere else because no one else is who we have offended by our sin. True comfort comes only from confessing what we have done and asking forgiveness from the One who we have offended and moved away from – God.

The great news is that once we have acknowledged that we have sinned, have gone to God and sincerely asked for forgiveness, we are forgiven. He gives us that comfort of being forgiven and being able to move back closer to Him. Remember back to being a child and having done something that upset your parent or someone who was very important to you, now remember what it was like when your parent or that important person forgave you and opened their arms inviting you in to show you how much they have forgiven you and truly love you. That feeling of warmth and comfort found in that embrace, that is the feeling we can experience as a child of God when we repent of our sins. However, that feeling goes much deeper because it is God we are getting that embrace from.

Are you in a place of mourning right now? Do you feel all alone because you have moved away from God? I pray that you will go to God today and ask for His forgiveness, that you will accept that forgiveness from Him and that you will rest in the embrace of our Heavenly Father as He pulls you closer to Him. If you are mourning today, please go and be comforted by the only true source of comfort, our Lord and Savior.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3 NIV

In the world we live in we are taught to be proud of our actions, our character and our possessions. The idea of not needing anyone is a constant theme that parents teach children throughout their childhood, to promote independence. As with everything in life, I believe that moderation is better than absolution.

When we are trying to lose weight, we tend to fail because we go to an extreme of absolution – absolutely no sugar or no carbs or we are exercising 5 days a week for an hour at a time. However, when we change our thinking to exclude or include some of it all, take some sugar or carbs out of our diet or add some exercise into our daily habits, we are more likely to succeed.

So what about our pride in our actions, our character, our possessions and our independence. This is where, I believe, we need some moderation as well. As followers of Christ, the actions that we are asked to take are actions that most people would be proud of, such as caring for others, loving others. The character traits are traits such as selflessness, patience. When we move into possessions we need to begin to be very mindful of what we focus on as our focus can become on the accumulation of worldly items instead of heavenly treasures.

As we talk about independence, I want us to look at our verse for the day. “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. As I said before, the way that God views how we should live is the exact opposite of the way the world views how we should live. Poor in spirit is the idea of acknowledging that we are dependent on another being, God. We cannot be righteous without God, we cannot be born again with God, we cannot produce the fruits of the spirit without God.

As you can see, the idea of independence or dependence that I am referring to is not about being able to pick up heavy boxes by yourself, it is about your attitude, the attitude of your heart. When the attitude of our heart is that we don’t need anyone to help us be righteous, help us gain eternal life or help us walk in the spirit, then we are not able to accept the gift of salvation from God. Being poor in spirit is being willing to acknowledge that we cannot earn our salvation and the only way we are able to be saved is by accepting Christ.

When we are able to find joy in simply being a child of God, knowing we are not the reason we are able to spend eternity with Jesus and knowing that He paid a debt for each one of us, we are living the way God wants us to live and not the world. Once we are able to do that, the second half of the verse makes more sense. “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven” is recognition that they will be in heaven for eternity. I believe that heaven is going to be filled with humble people who know that they are not responsible for being there, they did not earn the right to be there and it is a gift from God to spend eternity in paradise.

Being poor in spirit is NOT being weak, it is actually being the strongest you can be because you are willing to admit that you are in total need of Christ and with Christ you are the righteousness in God’s sight. We all need to examine our hearts at times to determine if we have a spiritually correct attitude. So, what is the attitude in your heart?

‘Now when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.’ Matthew 5:1-2 NIV

I think it is wonderful that Matthew has captured this teaching moment of Jesus’s when he is talking with His disciples along with a large crowd along. These were great moments that Jesus was able to use so He could share why He was here, Who He was and what path His followers to travel. The beatitudes are a wonderful way that Jesus uses to explain what it means to be a citizen of God’s kingdom. The character we should possess, the actions we should take and the beliefs we should hold.

The Beatitudes are a list of 8 distinct ways to think, act and believe. What you will notice about each one of them is that they are the exact opposite of how the world has taught us to think, act and believe. As Christians we are blessed to be given the opportunity each and every morning to be able to choose who we will listen to that day. We can choose to listen to the world and all that it has to offer, such as anger, chaos and confusion or we can choose to listen to God and what He has to offer, such as love, calmness and clarity. The choice is truly ours and ours alone.

When we choose to follow the world and all that it wants us to experience, we are choosing to be ‘of the world’ and that separates us from God. While we follow the world’s way of doing things, it may look like we are getting ahead in our careers, or being successful in relationships, however, that is just a facade. What is truly happening behind all the noise that the world produces is the slow decaying of our souls, the slow transition of us giving our lives over to the devil and the evil powers of this world.

When we choose to follow God and all that He has to offer, we are choosing to walk in line with His will and purpose for our lives. We are able to take that time and move closer to God. We will be successful in all that He wants us to do, not just successful in temporary moments of our life. The difference is that the success that God has waiting for us is a type of success that we cannot even imagine we are capable of having. As we walk each and every day with God, we grow closer to Him, we grow in our faith, we mature in our spirits.

So this morning, or whenever you are reading this, now is your time to decide who you will follow – the world or our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It is your choice and yours alone but I encourage you to choose carefully because your decision each day has eternal repercussions.

“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1 NIV

So many times when I pray I ask God for something. Please understand that I am thankful and thank Him daily for what He has blessed me with but I don’t feel like I dedicate many prayers or much prayer time to simply praising God and giving Him thanks. David writes this Psalm as a way of expressing how thankful and grateful he is for all that God had done for him. He opens the psalm by stating that he will give thanks to God and that it will be with all of his heart, his whole heart.

Sometimes we give thanks to God but it almost seems like it is an after thought. We are enjoying whatever the blessing is or enduring the trial and we simply forget to give thanks for it. When we realize we haven’t given thanks yet, we hurry to say a prayer of thanksgiving.

The idea of giving thanks with your whole heart can be described as being as grateful as you can be. You are ALL in, your gratitude and thankfulness is pouring out of you so much that you cannot contain it. One of the ways we show that level of thankfulness is by telling just about everyone we know all about the wonderful thing we are grateful or thankful for. That is the last part of the verse.

David states that he is going to tell of ALL of God’s wonderful deeds that He has done for David. Just like us, David was not perfect and sinned, but with a humble heart, he repented to God and changed his behaviors. God accepts a repenting sinner and forgives them. That is not all that David did though, he also did his best to follow God’s will for his life by listening to God.

God was gracious to David from helping him with Goliath to protecting him from Saul and eventually blessing him as King. David didn’t have to be perfect for God to bless him, but he did need to listen to God, follow God’s will and directions. When David did those things then God blessed him and David is writing in his psalm telling God that he will not keep all the wonderful things God has done for him a secret. He wants to tell everyone.

Has God blessed you? I know He has blessed me. Have you told people about what God has done for you? I have and not in a bragging kind of way, but in a humble, grateful manner, I have told people how God has blessed me with a wonderful husband, beautiful son, and awesome family. I also state that I know that I do not deserve any of the blessings that God has given me and that I am so thankful that God wants to have anything to do with me, a sinner.

That is the beautiful thing about God, He does want to have everything to do with me and you. He did the most wonderful deed already, He gave us the gift of salvation and eternal life with Him. If I could only tell of one wonderful deed that God has done for me, it would be that one. Thankfully, I am not limited to telling people only about one of His deeds, I can tell them about ALL of them. What wonderful deeds has God done for you that you can tell others about? Think about it and then tell them to everyone.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” Mark 12:30 NIV

In this chapter of Mark, Jesus is with crowds as He usually was and a teacher of the law asks Jesus which commandment Jesus believed to be the most important one. Jesus told the teacher which one is the most important of all and that is to love the Lord your God. Jesus doesn’t say that the commandment stops there but instead explains what that means.

So, what does it mean to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. We could break each one of these down and we would be here for a while, instead let’s look at them as a whole. Loving God is a wonderful commandment but without adding some specific directions, it could become a superficial kind of love.

When we say to a friend “I love you” there is a certain level that your love goes to. For example, a friend might not know the same intimate details about you or your life that a spouse might know or that your parent might know. The level of the love for a friend typically goes deeper than your love for a co-worker with whom you do not hold a friendship, remembering that we are to love everyone.

For us to make sure that we don’t limit the level of our love for God, Jesus further explains what “love the Lord your God” means. When you love someone with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, you are putting your whole self into this love. Again, this isn’t your surface love that we have for all mankind. This love is different.

When you let yourself feel love with all of your being, you are involving all of you. You think about the person all the time, you want to do things with that person, you want to do things to make that person happy, you become very connected to that person, and you put that person in a place of importance in your life. Some of these aspects are connected to the emotional part of love, feeling connected, but some of these aspects of love are choices.

So love is not just an emotion? No, it is also a choice. The feeling of love, that warm feeling you get in your stomach, that is an emotion but our emotions change. When you love someone with every part of your being, your emotions do not rule how you feel. There are going to be times when the person you love upsets you, hurts your feelings or pulls away from you and if your love for that person is only based on emotion, then you may decide that you do not love them anymore.

When you think of love as a choice or an action that you take, love becomes more. When the person does not do what you want, hurts your feelings or pulls away from you, you have a choice to do the same or to continue to show your love for them by continuing to love them.

So when we apply that to this verse, we can see that loving God is great especially when we are in worship and things are going the way that we want them to go, but what about when they don’t. What about when God has answered your prayer with ‘wait’ or ‘no’? Then we have a choice, are we going to continue to love God or are we going to follow our emotion and give up? Choosing to act on love and continue to show love for someone when you are hurt or disappointed can be hard but that is what is being called for in this verse. Putting God above all else, whether He has answered our prayers the way we want or not, whether He is moving as fast as we want and whether we feel like it or not.

Remember that God loves us that way. We have sinned against Him and He still sent Jesus to die for our sins. He could have given up and walked away so many times, but He didn’t. So, as you go about your day, think about what kind of love you show to others and to God.