Showers of Blessings
The more I read these three chapters, Matthew 5–7, the more I am both drawn to them and shamed by them. There is a light in these chapters that draws Christians to it, but the light is so bright it sears and burns and shames. Here there is no room for that form of piety that is just veneer and sham. It is all or nothing. You’re either in or you’re out. There’s no compromise
First, the word blessed itself. Some modern translations try to cover it by the word happy. That just doesn’t quite do. The word has more of a connotation of being approved by God. He who is approved by God will be happy, but it does not follow that he who is happy is approved by God.
This immediately raises the question about whose approval we seek, and really that is what a great deal of the Sermon on the Mount is about. Whose approval do we seek? Am I out primarily to please my friends, my family, my colleagues, to be the best known and best loved, or do I want above all, above everything else, to please God?
genuine poverty of spirit is the conscious acknowledgement of un-worth before God.
