Praise the Lord we are still standing! For the past several months I've been growing in grace with an amazing group of women. Our journey has taken us through a spiritual warfare study. It was not the typical Ephesians 6:10, put on the whole armor lesson; instead, we learned to wage war daily against the ungodly attitudes that rise up in us. Whew, this has been a challenging and convicting leg of the journey. Our study concluding in Matthew 5, The Beatitudes. And seeing the multitudes, He went up into a mountain: and when He was set, His disciples came unto Him: And He opened His mouth, and taught them, saying...blessed are... ( Matt 5:1-2). At this point in His ministry, Jesus had reached the pinnacle of His popularity. The setting for the sermon On The Mount is a hillside near Capernaum, and took place over a course of several days in front of a growing crowd. So as Jesus started His discourse, He began to describe the characteristics of people who belong to the kingdom of heaven, answering the question who on earth are we? Or better yet, Who are earth should we be? It is clear to me that if today Jesus were to post the Beatitudes on Instagram and FB, the likes would be few and the follows even less. But we should not be surprised because, Jesus was radical in His thinking. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts - Is 55:8-9. He makes it clear that as believers who we should be on earth are not people whose primary pursuit is power, popularity, prominence, or prosperity. The blessed life He describes has nothing at all to do with any of the aforementioned things. This blessed life He describes is a spiritual state of being filled with such an abundance of joy, peace, comfort and intimacy with Him it surpasses what was normally attributed to any human experience. Interested in living that kind of blessed life? Journey with us over the course of the next few posts to discover, how to live that blessed life and to discover who on earth we should be as we examine the Beatitudes. desiring to live the blessed life, Diane |
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