Poor in Spirit

“Blessed are the poor in spirit...” Matthew 5:3

What does blessed mean?  Partly it means that God turns His face towards us with divine favor. With all the good in Him. To be poor in spirit, what does that mean? It's not that we have no money or resources.

I think it means being aware that we are spiritually bankrupt before the Lord. That we have absolutely nothing that we can offer Him because He is awesome, and mighty and does not need anything from us. There is also nothing that we can boast of. Our good deeds are as rags before Him. 

Sometimes I give talks about our business to students. In the last talk, I had to do a recording. I never fail to mention that God is a partner in our business, and we are successful because of Him. Prayer is always a part of the way we do business.

After one particular talk a long time ago, I was feeling inordinately pleased with myself and sort of congratulated myself for doing a good job.  Immediately, God took me to task and showed me verses from Luke 17. 

In it the master says, “When you have done everything that was assigned to you, you should say, “We are unworthy servants; we have simply done our duty." Although I felt ashamed for awhile, our Father never condemns. When He teaches us a lesson it is always with love and for our own good. 

The Beatitudes are not about what we do. If we are a CEO, or a garbage collector, a priest or a toilet cleaner, that is not what is important to God. What is important is what we are, our character.  Are we becoming like Jesus every day? Because for all our roles and duties, God can raise up stones to do it all better than we can!