When He saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain, and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him. Then He began to teach them, saying: “The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs. Matthew 5:1-3 ![]() Their is man whom I called my pastor for many years at the church I came from. He was not a large man, he was actually a small man in stature but what he lacked in height he commanded in presence. When he would walk into a room it was as if you knew you had to stop what you were doing and listen to what was about to come out of his mouth. It is a strange concept for us nowadays to think of paying attention to someone who just sat down, it is usually the one who stands up that we give our attention to. But in Jesus day, they understood that when a rabbi or teacher was going to teach, he would sit down. So as Jesus sat, His disciples knew they should listen. Jesus could have started His sermon anywhere but He chose pride. Now notice He didn't even say the word pride but the very first thing out of His mouth could not even be heard by an individual full of pride without God's help. To recognize that you have need and ask for help is not something that comes naturally for most people. We are taught that we can "fix it", "figure it out", "things will work out in time" or even "there is no problem". Yet Jesus says our attitude should be one of humility, we should recognize God's absolute control and our bankruptcy. People file for bankruptcy once they realize they don't have what it takes to pay off what they owe. It is usually after trying for some time but never getting ahead, you realize that it would take forever and you are just exhausted of trying to do it on your own. To be be poor in spirit is to realize that I cannot pay my sin debt. I owe God a perfect life and it is impossible for me to ever give it to Him. Our good deeds will NEVER make our bad deeds disappear. So Jesus says very plainly, "The poor in spirit are blessed, for the kingdom of heaven is theirs". The blessings of God, starting with salvation, will only be ours if we humble ourselves. To humble ourselves means we recognize our place before God and our need of Him. Some beggars will rather eat out of a garbage can rather than accept help from someone else. As strange as that sounds it is the spiritual heart condition of every student and adult since the day Adam introduced sin into the world we were barn to. We would rather each the garbage we can get on our own rather than the feast God offers through His Son. For the next three days we'll look at this simple picture in different forms. It is an illustration used to help assess the spiritual condition of a person by CRU, a ministry dedicated to raching the world for Jesus starting with college students. The circle represents our life, the dots represent the various decisions we make, the chair is the throne and whoever sits on it makes the decisions, the white silhouette of a person is you and the cross represents Jesus. The picture shown today is the natural person which is the person who does not have the Spirit of God living inside them. Notice that Jesus is outside of the circle of their lives and they are making all the decisions as they sit on the throne. We will look at 2 other models in the next days but for today I want you to consider, is this you? Does this model represent the reality of your spiritual condition before God? Is Jesus on the outside of your life? Are you making every decision apart from Him? You may be like the person who needs to file bankruptcy yet you think "you got this" and you make it to heaven on your own by just doing your best. Listen to Jesus today and recognize your spiritual poverty before him and let Him into the circle of your life. It is simple, if you know your need and believe only Jesus can do what I can never do, Jesus will do just that. He will place you into the circle of His life and make you His own forever. If this is something you desire and maybe do not understand exactly how it works let me know on the comments below of email privately. Just click on the tab that says "Contact Me" and I will as soon as I see you message. My prayer as well as those our your other leaders is that we step off of our thrones and surrender to Jesus not just for salvation but daily in our decisions. Have a great day Loved Ones and God bless you real good!
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