Poor in spirit - Jesus in Sermon on Mount
God blesses you when you are poor in spirit
This is a very important verse.
Think about God
To understand the sermon, we must think about God. We must think about what God is really like. God is perfect and completely good. He does what is always right and fair. He is perfect. There is nothing that is not perfect about God. He is not like a shadow, that changes (James 1:17). His nature is love: all love.
What happens to people who understand this? Men like the prophet Isaiah, the prophet Ezekiel, or the disciple John had visions of God. Then they understood how great and how perfect God is. At the same time they understood themselves. They knew that they did not deserve God‘s love. They knew that their lives were full of wrong things. When Peter realised who Jesus is, Peter fell down. He said, ’Leave me, because I am a wicked man‘. The sermon starts with a verse that says this. ’You are happy if you know this: you are poor in spirit‘ (Matthew 5:3).
How to describe a Christian
If you want to describe a Christian, begin like this. The Christian must know that he is poor in spirit. The kingdom of God belongs to people who know this. In fact, the kingdom of God belongs ONLY to people who know this. They know that they are not good. God blesses those who know this. They know that they need God. They know that they are not right without God. That is why God blesses them. He does not bless people who do not want him. There is nobody in the kingdom of God who is not poor in spirit.
We need God
Many people do not care about their spirits. Instead, they believe in themselves. They are confident because they trust in themselves. They think that you can make society good, by good government. But you cannot do this. We all have wrong things in our hearts and in our lives. We have to realise this first. Then we can realise that we need God.
