I find it interesting, Jesus, that you begin the Sermon on the Mount with these words, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.” This is the first of the beatitudes, and I must say, it has always been the most puzzling to me. But because it is first, I know it is primary in some way. It opens a door for all the teaching which follows. Poverty of spirit must be a fundamental key to the kingdom. Without it we will not be merciful; we will not be known as peacemakers; and we will certainly not be able to endure persecution.
Jesus, You are King in the Kingdom of Heaven. You determine who comes in and who stays out. You are the Gate and the Teacher and the Way. Therefore I know You must be poor in spirit. You would not form in us any attribute which does not reside perfectly in Your Person.
You came to us poor. You served us poor – dependent of men’s generosity. You died poor, stripped naked, abandoned and betrayed. But You were poor in spirit far before we knew You. This has always been Your posture before the Father.
From the beginning, You have honored the Father from whom You were begotten. You have acknowledged that He is greater than You. When you were on earth, You sought His comfort and His direction in prayer. You did only what You saw Him doing. You trusted Him, even unto death. You always did His will. Therefore Paul writes to all of us who seek Your Kingdom, “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. “
Satan is not poor in spirit. Satan is proud. He will serve no one. What pain and suffering that pride has spawned in heaven and on earth! I believe, Jesus, that Satan fell because he did not want to relate to the Father through You, as the Father willed. I believe Satan resented the fullness of the Father’s glory and authority in You, the Only-Begotten. So when You were stripped of glory, in submission to the Father’s will, Satan attacked you. He went after Your poverty of spirit. He incited you to grasp your equality with God. He provoked You to lay claim to what was rightfully Yours. He taunted you with these words, “If You are the Son of God….” But You never took the bait. You remained empty and dependent, showing us the way of sonship. Dependence and complete submission were imperative to Your union with the Father, and they are the keys to our union with You.
Recently, Jesus, you reminded me of this dynamic. You asked me, “Amy, what is the most foundational truth about your relationship to Me?”
“That I am a helpless sinner, completely dependent on Your mercy,” I responded.
I came to you, Jesus, completely poor. I was a child, unable to care for myself, unable to be good, unable to wriggle free from guilt. You were my refuge, my hope, my comfort, and I had nothing to offer in return except my love. I was hungry and thirsty for righteousness. My emptiness made room for Your compassion. You came and fed me. You filled me. And You delighted to do so. Still You love to fill my emptiness.
To be poor in spirit is to recognize and embrace my dependence. I did not give myself life. I do not determine what is right and wrong. Understanding these truths places me in a right posture before God my Maker.
Satan corrupts our understanding of spiritual poverty. He is a manipulator who loves to portray You in his own twisted image. He sowed seeds of doubt and discontent into Adam and Eve. He claimed You were withholding good gifts from them. He told them they should choose for themselves; that they could become like God – knowing good from evil. So they asserted their wills. They desired to have something of their own, not dependent on God. And in that moment, they traded poverty of spirit for death.
Satan lied to them. It is not the nature of our Father to withhold good gifts. Neither is it like You, Jesus, to doubt the Father. You allowed the Father to choose Your path, even as Isaac trusted Abraham.
Satan lies in other ways. He paints the Father as an angry God always holding our sin over our heads. He would love for our dependence to become a source of fear rather than confidence. He would love us to resent our poverty. If we ever resent or doubt Your mercy, we will despair and embrace his darkness. Or we will try to stand on our own righteousness.
Self-righteousness is the opposite of spiritual poverty, and it is a barrier to union with You, Jesus. The self-righteous will always remain paupers, like Adam after the fall. But the poor in spirit will inherit riches beyond imagination. The poor in spirit are heirs of the kingdom. Poverty of spirit leads to sonship.
It was only when the prodigal son experienced poverty that he began to value his father. “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father…” He returned because he knew his father’s generosity. Aware of his transgression, he did not ask for his status as a son to be restored. He went home to serve as a laborer, but he was greeted as a son. And in his restoration the prodigal understood for the first time the gifts entrusted to him – the robe, the ring, the sandals.
The sad irony of this story is that the older son, standing on his own righteousness, never enters into the joy of his sonship. He accuses his father of treating him unjustly, “never giving him so much as a goat to celebrate with his friends.” The father replies, “You are always with me. All that I have is yours.” But in his anger and envy the older son interacts with his father as a hired hand. He wants to be recognized for his merit. He holds his work as a right, a claim against his father. In that posture, he is unable to receive the riches of the father’s love and mercy. And because he cannot receive the father’s love, he cannot extend it to his brother.
I’ve been thinking of another parable recently - the parable of the laborers in the vineyard. The men hired late in the day were paid as much as the ones who began working at dawn. This was the owner’s prerogative and pleasure. But the workers hired early felt offended. They believed they merited more than the latecomers.
I wondered - what was vineyard owner’s reward? What was he hoping to gain in hiring labor? The harvest, of course! And that is what all of his sons and daughters would desire as well. Sons and daughters do not work for wages. They work for the harvest. They invest in their inheritance.
Our Father wants us poor so that He can fill us with the gift of union – a wealth we could never merit. Ruth came to Boaz as a beggar. She was exalted as a wife. Esther bowed before Xerxes in humility, placing her life in his hands. She won the lives of all her people. Mary gave her empty womb to YHWH and received You, Jesus, the Savior of the World.
Is this why the Father delights in our prayers? Is this why You prayed, Jesus? We come in helplessness asking the Father to do what only He can do. And He, in turn, delights to fill us with good things. But the rich, or the self-righteous, He sends away empty.
I am awed to think that You interact with the Father in this kind of humility. You emptied Yourself, became a servant, obedient even to death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted You and bestowed on You the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus, I would like to be poor in spirit to the glory of God the Father. I want to be poor, like Mary, until Your nature is formed in me. I want to live as an heir rather than a hired hand, waiting in hope for Your Kingdom to come. When I see the fullness of Your glory, as You behold the Father’s glory, I will become truly humble even as You, my King, are humble.