THE BLESSED LIFE

(Our background scripture for this writing is Matthew 5:3-11)

The Desire For Being Blessed (an overview): Being blessed seems of great importance to humanity today.  It was of paramount importance to Jesus also as “blessed” is the beginning word in the first nine truths He shared from the hills that day that we call the “Sermon on the Mount.”  “Blessed are…Blessed are…Blessed are…;” and on He goes.  Jesus put forth an entire list for “blessed” which had little or nothing to do with possessions or one’s own external circumstances.  It was an amazing and seemingly impossible message.  The religious system of the day was being turned upside down. The content and character of life becomes far superior to having circumstances that were trouble free.

Today there continues to be much discussion, teaching and preaching, most of which seems very “me” oriented with regard to being blessed.  While it is true that in the Old Testament (and to many now) the primary manifestation of being blessed or happy was the amount of goods you had, your health, the number of descendents, and your rank or position in society, to many, if not most the listeners that day the results of righteousness and obeying God had been measured primarily in visible “prosperity.”  Prosperity and popularity was the primary evidence of a spiritually superior person.  Jesus presented a dramatic shift that day.  Jesus has a way of overturning tables you know.

Jesus took the common thinking and Greek word of His culture for “happy” and elevated it to a far more superior meaning than had ever been attached to it, either in Scripture or in the culture of His day.  Jesus has a way of doing that; taking the common and elevating it to an uncommon level.  Do not be overly concerned about being simple or common, or even the common around you.   It is the creative stuff out of which Jesus can revolutionize your world, and perhaps most importantly, the world around you.  St. Francis of Assisi said it something like this; “It is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

From your father's heart with love (DWJ)