Beauty, Truth, and Supreme Satisfaction

Have you ever had a deep sense of your insignificance? Have you ever had one of those leveling moments when you wonder why the heck God has allowed you to continue with the blessings and responsibilities that he has bestowed on you? Have you thought that you may not be able to keep it going, that the people who love you deserve more, and God deserves more as a witness to his name?

Jesus called this the poor in Spirit. My pastor is preaching through Matthew and we have now reached the Sermon on the Mount. Yesterday he preached on the first three beatitudes. Beatitude isn’t really a word that we use in conversation. We use the term blessed a lot, but not usually in the same manner as Jesus does in his sermon. I think that it is a blessing to have a healthy family and to love God well with all he has given me.

These blessings overwhelm me sometimes because I am so needy. I think of my dearest blessings, my closest neighbors---my family. I just don’t love them as well as I desire. While I am encouraged by the knowledge that Christ has loved me so profoundly and that he blesses my efforts as I strive to share that love with others, I also am constantly aware of how I fail to live accordingly.

This is the greater blessing. We are all there. We don’t measure up to the righteousness of God on our own, and so we don’t love as we should. We don’t even appreciate our blessings enough. We take them for granted. And yet we look to our blessings for satisfaction. Recognizing our bankruptcy here is the greater blessing. The gig is up. 

The world promotes self esteem. Self esteem is not a blessing. It is a hoax. My pastor explained that to be blessed is to be richly satisfied because we know the King. These beatitudes, explaining supreme blessing, teach us the mark of those in God’s kingdom. Self esteem promotes self-reliance, situational happiness, and the illusion of control. The first three beatitudes teach a positional truth for those who are needy, sorrowful, and submissive.

This is a comfort. When I am low, when I sense my depravity and I feel so inadequate, when I sense the chasm between my faith and my actions, when I wish I were more pliable to whatever God ordains, I am blessed to know that Someone has lived a life that embodies these beatitudes---Jesus Christ. My pastor made it clear that we do not get into the kingdom because we are these things.  

And yet I am blessed.

Pastor Vandelden ensured us that we get into the kingdom by trusting the perfect citizen. “Behold the King in his Word.” We need the King, so we are poor in spirit. We love the King, and so we mourn over how we have offended him. We submit to the King, and so we are harnessed by the Word of God in meekness. 

No, I am not poor enough in Spirit, I do not mourn as I should, and I have much growth before me in meekness. Our King Jesus lived the life of a man who embodied these attributes. But as citizens of his kingdom, we are going to be transformed into the likeness of our King. These beatitudes describe what a citizen of heaven will be recognized by. And it is beautiful.

We are sold a convoluted message by society about true beauty. But there is no beauty without truth. For now, it is beautiful to behold the King in his Word. It is beautiful to live according to his Word. But what a blessing it will be to behold the beatific vision, when we shall see Christ as he is in his unveiled glory---a supreme blessing.