Talk of JESUS . com

Tag: God

  • The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Part 2

    The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Part 2

    Matthew 5

    King James Version (KJV)

    • Blessed are the poor in spirit.

    NOT the poor in money – not the poor in anything other than a downcast spirit and soul of hopelessness. God has not looked on you with blessing. You live the life of curse and lack of blessing. God’s wrath must have looked on your life as worthy of nothing better than the dust of the earth.

    • For theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.

    How can this be? Cursed. Living as souls paying the price of every sin. How can one so downcast in heart be blessed with the Kingdom of Heaven?

    • Blessed are they that mourn.

    We all mourn. We mourn the loss of a father, a mother, a husband, a wife, a child, a dear friend, a relative. We mourn their loss by death, by war, by famine, by disease, by abduction, by slavery, by imprisonment, by addictions, by drugs, by alcohol, by divorce, by hatred, by broken relationship, by loss of all hope of making all that is death and evil into desperation of grief. We all wail in the mourning of our hearts, broken again and again until the final grieving as death. I need freed from this!

    • For they shall be comforted.

    What comfort short of death has any man? What peace may a suffering servant know?

    • Blessed are the meek.

    The self-made, driven man is the one blessed by his own hand. Do we not aggressively pursue the best God has for our life now? God helps those who help themselves, right? Those who want to expand their kingdom of blessings on earth cannot be gentle, submissive, mild and gentle.  The world will take from me every blessing, if I am meek.

    • For they will inherit the earth.

    How can I end up with nothing, yet inherit the earth?

    • Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness.

    No, not blessed are the hungry – not blessed are thirsty. Am I not hungry every day? Do some hunger for food in their extreme poverty and even thirst for unpolluted water to drink? Yes, these do suffer more than me and more than you. But here in this place Jesus asks the filled and the hungry both to hunger and thirst after righteousness. Hunger to do the right thing before God at all times and in all ways. Desire to feed your flesh with the food and water of God.

    • For they shall be filled.

    How can I be filled with the bread and wine of righteousness? How can the Word of Jesus fill the hunger of my soul?

    • Blessed are the merciful.

    Who would show me mercy? Do the rich and the powerful not enslave us without mercy? Will the conquering nation show mercy on the slaves of their might? Will the poor criminal not pay every penny owed to the rich man, while the influential will bribe the judge?

    • For they shall obtain mercy.

    Will God please show me some mercy, and the unrighteous justice?

    • Blessed are the pure in heart.

    I stand before God with a hypocritical heart and a soiled soul.

    • For they shall see God.

    How will I be cleansed of my impure spirit of the flesh?

    • Blessed are the peacemakers.

    We live in a place where our conquerors have forced peace. Shall I make peace with the unrighteous? We have peace only when we give in to the rule of our leaders.

    • For they shall be called the children of God.

    Does God not call on His children to fight for what is right? Can we be instruments of peace in a place of war? Is it the place of children to fight for the Father?

    • Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.

    Have the righteous and unrighteous both not been persecuted? Why would I do what is right knowing that I will be persecuted?

    • For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

    And if I do not do what is right? Will heaven have my soul?

    • Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake.

    Is the man also a Prophet? Why does he say that others will speak evil of me for his sake?

    • Rejoice, and be exceeding glad; for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

    I don’t want to be persecuted for my own sake, let alone for the sake of this Jesus. The Prophets of God were opposed by evil men of their captors and of their own religion.

    (Just some possible thoughts of some in the multitude, hearing Jesus teach the Beatitudes.)

    To be continued…

  • The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Introduction

    The Beatitudes and the Multitudes – Introduction

    You may not have thought of the beatitudes as a teaching related to preparation for Christmas (Advent), but by intention of the Spirit that is exactly what is on my heart.

    The usual Christmas liturgy of church begins just after the following genealogy of Jesus Christ (which we tend to skip over, just like those in Numbers, Kings and other historical Old Testament Books of the Bible).

    After you skip through the generations of Joseph, Jesus’ step-father, we will look back just a little at the historical time preceding the coming of the Messiah to a lowly manger in Bethlehem of Judea, before proceeding to the early teachings of Jesus on true blessings (Beatitudes, as we call them).

    Matthew 1

    English Standard Version (ESV)

    The Genealogy of Jesus Christ

    1 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

    2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3 and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4 and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5 and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6 and Jesse the father of David the king.

    And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7 and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8 and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9 and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10 and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11 and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.

    12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13 and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14 and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15 and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16 and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

    17 So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

    Now look back some to the generations between the destruction of Solomon’s Temple (9th c. B.C.) and the building of Herod’s Temple.

    David had united Israel and Judah. Solomon’s sons divided the Kingdom of God’s chosen people into Israel (under Jeroboam) and Judah (under Rehoboam, Matthew 1:7). Without going into the many historical details of these nations over the centuries, Israel eventually came under the influence of Samaria, which fell in 721 B.C., and Judah, which fell in 587 B.C. The walls were destroyed my Nebuchadnezzar and rebuilt by Nehemiah in the mid 5th century B.C. Several accounts of these times are recorded in Ezra-Nehemiah and Daniel.

    Alexander the Great conquered much of the known world in the 3rd c. B.C. from Greece west to India, spreading the eventual Greek language of the New Testament throughout the middle east. For some 400 years, Parthia was the largest organized state on the eastern frontier of the Roman Empire until it was later captured by Rome later in A.D. 113 (during the days of early Christianity; but the unifying language of Judea and most of the Roman Empire was Greek (not Latin or local languages).

    Two groups of Jews locked in civil war when Pompey captured Jerusalem (106-48 B.c.) Herod (who was a half-Jew) chose the right side in the Roman conflict and was appointed King of Judea in 40 B.c. Herod conquered ‘his Kingdom’ with the ‘help’ of the Roman army. {Much of the preceding source information from: Historical Atlas of the Bible, by Dr. Ian Barnes}

    Into this often contested arena of Nations and Kings and Emperors and gods of every imagination and evil inclination of man is born Christ Jesus, Son of the Living God, conceived by the Holy Spirit; born of a virgin in Bethlehem of Judea. For thirty years Jesus, Emmanuel (God With Us), lives among the poor and downtrodden men of Galilee.

    Into this scene, Jesus is anointed for His fulfillment of prophesy and sacrifice of the Cross, filled with the Holy Spirit and living a life of sinlessness, teaching man (adam”) how God has intended us to live. Into a difficult time and place, where a people of God thought they lived lives cursed by God, Jesus comes to a mountainside teaching with the Authority of God Almighty and the power of the Holy Spirit.

    To be continued…

     

  • A Calm with the Storm

    A Calm with the Storm

    Take note of the calm following a storm of winter. A God-imposed calm in the places of hustle and bustle stills the plans and activities of man. Snow covers the streets and does not relent. His blanket of purity glistens upon the rooftops and signposts. Innumerable distinct flakes of cleansing whiteness fall on all creation not covered, all creatures and dirt of life’s daily dirge.

    A poet may speak of the calm before the storm or a painter glisten the canvas with a scene frozen in time, but God only interrupts our imaginings of daily life, our comings and our goings, our breathing in and breathing out. Only God does bring the storm and only God does cleanse the creation. Only God has brought the tempest. Only God does bring the calm.

    From the boat of fisherman on Chinnereth or from above the lower heavens known to man, God does stir the sea, calm the storm, bring in the tempest of wrath and set still the storm of bright cleansing.

    Psalm 107:29 He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still.

    As it is and was, it will always be. The Lord giveth and the Lord takest away. So even with the storm and the cleansing. So even with the earth and the cleansing.

    Revelation 15 And I saw another sign in the heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.

    And I saw as if it were a sea of glass mingled with fire…