Written this week by Alan LindbergBackground: Today we continue through the Beatitudes showing us how our approach to life can result in God’s blessing.
7 Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.
The three verses from yesterday all related to our attitudes. This one relates to actions we can take as we relate to others. We have a choice in terms of how we interact with others. God has clearly demonstrated mercy to us in terms of not punishing us at the level that our sins likely deserve. As He loves us, we should love others. In Matthew 22:37-38 Jesus tells the lawyer, and us - And he said to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. Immediately after declaring the greatest commandment He follows it in Matthew 22:39 with - And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. How can we not be merciful to others if we love them? Here again it is too easy to fall into the trap of the world. It says to us take advantage of others; get even, but we have a better source of direction than the world in these matters.
As I mentioned above we are experiencing life under a merciful God. He loves it when our actions follow His. We need to show mercy to everyone, like the Good Samaritan did. This may be an extreme example of mercy given the condition of the one who needed it, robbed and beaten and left along the road to die. The man who was beaten was considered a risk to everyone who passed by, of danger from hidden robbers, lying in wait and even from ceremonial uncleanness for the Jews. We need to overcome our reluctance to help. We also need to be thoughtful and observant in our lives to truly see those who are in need of some mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
As we see in the description of many of the people at the time of Christ’s earthly ministry the focus was on outward appearance and ritual. Provide the right sacrifices, act the right way in the synagogue and you are “righteous”. All of these things are outward appearance but not the true intention of the believer. As we see in the selection of a new King for the people of Israel in 1 Samuel 16:7 - But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." God does not judge on anything outward, including our religious behavior. He does judge our hearts and those whose hearts are pure shall see God. What does it mean to be “pure in heart”? The word “pure” means to be free from anything of a different, inferior, or contaminating kind. We need to work on our hearts being pure by focusing on the Lord, which is “essentially seeing God”
9 Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.
God made the ultimate gesture of peace through Christ, giving Him to reconcile us to Himself. We are the beneficiaries of that greatest gesture of peacemaking. God offers this peace to us. We need to take Him up on that offer. Again we need to emulate Him by helping bring that peace to others. We also need to act to bring peace between our fellow men when the opportunity presents itself. We will be called sons of God because we are emulating our Father in our actions.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 11 Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
God loves the truly righteous as they are acting as He would act, emulating God, following His lead in all things. Why are the righteous persecuted? They follow God and not the world. Unfortunately we live in a world that knows sin and as a consequence many are led by the sin that is in their lives. In John 7:7 Jesus told His brothers: The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil. The world needs a savior yet rebels at His message because it contradicts what they know and it serves to condemn them. As a consequence those who bring the message are reviled and persecuted. We see only a little of this persecution in our lives. We need to remember that we live in a world where there are many who are persecuted to the point of being martyred for their faith. For all of the righteous who believe in and follow Christ there awaits the reward of God’s kingdom and His blessing. In fact, the reward is not just in being a part of the kingdom, but the reward is great in heaven just as the reward was great for those prophets who were persecuted before us.
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