Blessed: A series on the Beatitudes

I was recently told to read the Beatitudes as I pursue the next chapters in my life seeing as a lot is changing. There are few different reasons I am reading the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount...

1) To dig deeper into what Jesus was saying in the Beatitudes

2) To reflect these attitudes on my own heart and become more Christlike

3) To enable me to bring these into Bible studies or messages with those whom I minister to so as to present each one mature in Christ (Colossians 1:28-29)


So, to kick this blog series off I am going to give a little precursor and in later posts I will break down each Beattitude separately...


In Matthew 5:1-2 Jesus is retreating to the mountainside. He takes a sitting posture, the normal posture of a rabbi in His day. He then calls His disciples to Him...to invest in them, disciple them...as this was right after their calling by the Savior. These men drop their nets and follow Jesus...His first lesson to them was a set of characteristics, attitudes seen as essential to the faith that Christ would live out and the hope He would offer apart from sin.


"Blessed"...a word that literally means "happy, fortunate, blissful." This is character development in the Christian life...deeper than the surface emotions that normally arise in our Christian life. These attitudes call for Christlikeness! Ways, paths, roads, walks of life going opposite directions of worldly ways and values that lead to the pursuing happiness. Happiness found in materialism, abundance, leisure, riches, and things alike. The Beatitudes describe characteristics of true faith. They are practical and impacting. A deep study and reflection of them upon our hearts and actions will result in Christlikness...God's Word promises not to return void (Isaiah 55:11).


My prayer is that all who read these blogs and are a part of the Bible studies to follow will be led to a deeper understanding of not just this section of Scripture but a growing thirst and hunger for Christ, His Word and the life of giving of ourselves to spread the Gospel...a personal revival.