Lessons from the Gospels 4 – Be
If you read nothing else in the Bible other than Matthew 5, I believe you would know all you need to know about being a Christian, from day-to-day interactions to our eternal hope. You’d still need baptism and indwelling of the Holdy Spirit, of course. More details about God’s plan and Jesus’ sacrifice would certainly be better. But you could live as God intended His children to live if the only part of the Bible you had was Matthew 5. In fact, we are just going to look at the “Beatitudes” to see how we should “be” as Christians in this world.
I believe if you grew up with only this chapter the Bible to read, and you followed it, you would hear “Well done, my good and faithful servant” at the time of the judgement.
One blog cannot cover all the important learnings from Matthew 5, but I’ll try to hit a few. I’ll again be using the New Living Translation for its more modern wording. Rather than “blessed are”, it says, “God blesses those”, making it clearer that this isn’t a coincidence (or “karma”, which I’ll get into more in chapter 8) but a planned response by God to His much-loved children.
So, here are the basics of Christianity:
Matthew 5:3 [NLT] 3 "God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:5 “God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.”
My paraphrase: Know your place in the universe and let it make you humble, because then God will bless you. You only need to go to the Psalms to read more about this. Here are a few examples: Psalm 18:27; 69:32; 138:6; 149:4]
Matthew 5:4, 6 [NLT] 4 God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ... 6 God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
You will suffer in this life – for your faith, because people can be cruel, and just because we are fragile beings. So will the rest of the world – the non-believers -- suffer. But your mourning for loss or for the condition of the world, and your desire for justice will result in God’s blessing.
Matthew 5:7 [NLT] 7 God blesses those who are merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
Show mercy to others or no mercy is coming your way. For further info on showing mercy see Luke 6:36. Also, see the parable in Matthew 18:22-35. It is just to great of a risk to withhold mercy from others. None of us can afford to be without the mercy God can show to us.
Matthew 5:8 [NLT] 8 God blesses those whose hearts are pure, for they will see God.
When we do good things for the right reasons, when we serve God and His people from the heart, we see the Father in them. They are His children too. If those we serve see God nowhere else, they should see Him in OUR words and deeds. I’ say that others see Him too. Our good deeds do not garner this blessing if they are not done from a pure heart. See 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 for more on that.
Matthew 5:9 [NLT] 9 God blesses those who work for peace, for they will be called the children of God.
Jesus is called the Prince of Peace. See Isaiah 9:6. If call Him our Lord and King, we should be peacemakers as well. The more contentious this world or any particular situation gets, the more we should stand out as those who stand for, crave and create peace. For further instruction on seeking peace see Psalm 34:14; Romans 12:18 and Hebrews 12:14.
God does not lie to us, nor hide from us the things that we will face during our lives on earth.
Matthew 5:11-12 [NLT] 11 "God blesses you when people mock you and persecute you and lie about you and say all sorts of evil things against you because you are my followers. 12 Be happy about it! Be very glad! For a great reward awaits you in heaven. And remember, the ancient prophets were persecuted in the same way.
We are in good company when we face persecution. Not only the ancient prophets faced the same – Jesus did too!
But the Father tells us that we should “be” happy about these troubles that come as a result of our obedience to Him. Why? Because He promises us a great reward for enduring through it.
We should “be” different in this world. God blesses us when we are aligned with Him, as peacemakers, as those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, as those who mourn for the suffering in the world and as those who suffer persecution with joy.
What do you think? Is the whole – or at least the greater part – of our Christian duty outlined in just these first 12 verses of Matthew? Well, we have more of this important chapter to go. I’ll continue exploring Matthew 5 in the next blog.
Sweet sisters, I hope you will “be” as Jesus was in this world.
I welcome your comments and questions. You can write me in the chat or any time at Nancy@DynamicChristianMinistries.org