Jesus Answers 9 Essential QuestionsShembull

Is this all there is?

In this short burst—a shotgun blast, really—of eternal truths, Jesus hits the reset button on our conventional expectations for success in life. In these rhythmic verses, he highlights qualities and characteristics that have little currency in our current world, but are priceless in the “Kingdom of God.” Here on earth, people who have strength of spirit often horde the treasure—but people who are poor in spirit gain the eternal treasure of the kingdom of heaven.

The same is true for mourners and the gentle and the desperate-for-justice and the merciful and the pure and the peacemakers and the persecuted. Be happy about it, says Jesus, because there is a real place (his “hometown”) where all of these denigrated characteristics are treated like the priceless treasures they are. No, the standards we’ve been taught to respect—the values that human beings typically reward—are often not the values that God rewards. This isn’t all there is, and we can live in that reality right now.