DAILY E-MAIL SIGN UP
PRINTER FRIENDLY
FONT SIZE 
In Poor Richard’s Almanac Benjamin Franklin observed, “Poverty often deprives a man of all spirit and virtue.” Jesus, though, said that poverty can be a path to blessing–if it is the right kind of poverty. Material poverty in itself is not a blessing. The author of Proverbs asked God to give him “neither poverty nor riches” (Prov. 30:8). Nor are the poor inherently more (or less) virtuous than the rich.
This month we will look at the Sermon on the Mount, an extended sermon by Jesus recorded in Matthew 5–7. As we’ll see, Jesus turns many of the preconceived notions of how to relate to others and to God on their head. These words, surely challenging to Jesus’ hearers, are no less challenging and encouraging to us today. We will be studying these “Jesus Rules” to see how our lives can line up more closely with what He requires.
Jesus opened the Sermon on the Mount with a series of declarations beginning with the phrase “Blessed are . . .” These have been called the Beatitudes, a description taken from the Latin word for blessed. In this opening Beatitude of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus pronounces a blessing upon the “poor in spirit” (Matt. 5:3). He uses the metaphor of poverty to help us understand the spiritual precondition for God’s blessing. But what did He mean when He spoke of poverty of spirit?
Throughout the Bible the term spirit refers to a person’s inmost being (Prov. 20:27; cf. 1 Cor. 2:11). Poverty of spirit has to do with our sense of self. It is the awareness that, where God is concerned, we suffer from a deficit of righteousness.
TODAY ALONG THE WAY
When Jesus enters the believer’s life He brings with Him an entirely new system of accounting. This is something the apostle Paul acknowledged when he compared his old way of life with new life in Christ and observed, “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ” (Phil. 3:7).
As you reflect on the work of Christ and all that it has brought to you, how many things can you identify that God has added to your “account” through the work of Christ?
| < Previous Day | Next Day > |
