Blessed Are TheySýnishorn

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.” These words are the opening lines of the Sermon on the Mount—some of Jesus’ most comprehensive teachings on the attitudes and behavior of his disciples. To be a disciple of Christ starts with this poverty of spirit; it is only in this attitude that we will be able to live out the principles described in the rest of the Sermon.

What is poverty of spirit? To be poor is to be dependent, to have needs that one must rely on others to meet. In Psalm 34, David calls himself “this poor man” and describes how he called upon the Lord who heard him and saved him out of his troubles. David’s poverty was more than material; he knew that he could not save himself from the situation he was in, and so he was dependent upon the Lord to rescue and deliver him.

To be poor in spirit means the same; it is to recognize and rejoice in the fact that we cannot save ourselves from sin and death, but that we are completely dependent upon the Lord for our salvation. In our spiritual poverty, we have nothing to offer God that could buy our salvation, nothing with which to “payback” what is given. As Paul writes to the Ephesians, “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” If we are not poor in spirit, we will struggle to accept this free gift, rather than being able to humbly receive and rejoice in our salvation.

And why is it the poor in spirit who are given the kingdom of heaven? Because it is in accepting the free gift of God’s grace that we enter into relationship with and submission to Christ the King. There is no place in the kingdom for those who are not spiritually poor, who do not admit their need of God and their dependence upon him to rescue them from their sinful state.

Reflect and pray

Give thanks to the Lord for the free gift of salvation that he has given you in Christ Jesus, and ask him to show you how to depend more fully upon his grace in your day-to-day life.