Abiding at the Feet of Jesus | A Look at the BeatitudesSýnishorn

Are you ready to move past acting like a Christian to abiding in Christ? Jesus invites you into a new and better way of life, but it’s a paradoxical realm that turns human logic upside down. It's a life where sorrow leads to joy, brokenness to health, and suffering to glory. This devotion is an introduction to the Beatitudes that Jesus shared in His famous Sermon on the Mount and taken from a book called Abiding at the Feet of Jesus by Nate Sweeney. 

The Beatitudes, found in Matthew 5, are a blueprint that you can follow on your journey into a rich and meaningful intimacy with Christ, that ultimately produces Kingdom fruit. Our study in the days ahead focuses on some of the richest and most foundational words of Christ. These words, when applied, have the power to transform you and lead you into this intimate, abiding relationship. The goal of the Beatitudes is to pierce the heart of a religious, works-based, self-righteous culture and replace it with an intimate, abiding relationship with a living God.

The Latin word for “blessed” here is beatus, from which we get the word beatitude. In fact, each statement of Christ’s begins with, “Blessed are.” This statement is then followed up with two more statements. The first one describes who is blessed, and the second one explains how they are blessed. So, these Beatitudes are giving us Kingdom insight into God’s nature. If you want to be blessed, you must seek to be the kind of person He describes in these important verses. 

What do these seemingly contradictory statements mean to us today? Many of these Beatitudes do not seem to make sense. In fact, many of the statements seem to be paradoxical. What did Jesus mean when He said that the poor in spirit are blessed and that the heavenly kingdom is theirs? How could someone be blessed in the midst of mourning? Was Jesus speaking in vague, abstract terms? What did He want us to take away from this sermon? 

As you read through this devotion, notice the essence of the Beatitude in each lesson.  Jesus was an amazing teacher, and He did not disappoint in these Beatitudes. Each Beatitude carries a very specific meaning and a significant individual feature. However, the Beatitudes seem to be systematic and progressive. This means that you cannot effectively jump ahead to the next Beatitude without embracing and digesting the previous one. The fruit of each Beatitude opens revelation to the next one. This is important to note so that you don’t gloss over any aspect of the message.

A writer once said this about the Beatitudes: It’s like someone went into the display window of life and switched all the price tags, and what we thought had value suddenly didn’t. We will find statements like, “happy are the sad,” or “satisfied are the hungry.” None of it makes sense until you place yourself at the feet of Jesus on a mountainside over two thousand years ago.

Action Items: 

1. To prepare for the rest of this devotional, please watch the short video below about journaling. This will give you a good foundation to help you process the action items for each day. 

2. As you read through Matthew 5:1-12 what stood out to you that you could write down?