DISCLAIMER: Okay, I'm really sorry but for some reason all of the paragraph breaks are being taken out whenever I edit/post this entry. It's driving me CRAZY but I don't know how to fix it right now short of retyping the whole thing by hand, which I don't wanna do tonight!
Our look into “The Pursuit of God” by A.W. Tozer took an interesting and (at least for me) unexpected turn this Sunday with the second chapter, “The blessedness of possessing nothing”.
Buh?!
“Wait a minute here,” was my first thought, “We are talking about pursuing right now. About chasing God; about falling in love with Him; about HIM pursuing and loving us so incredibly and completely and compellingly BEFORE we could come to Him…why do we need to talk about our stuff?!”
But it’s true. The Deadliest Thing to your pursuit, as Tozer said in the last chapter we talked over, was complacency… getting apathetic, cool, satisfied where you’re at. However, content is not the same as satisfied. We are to be content pursuing God, but never satisfied with our progress so that we stop. Sometimes, though things interrupt our pursuit—and Jesus says that is the enemy. You don’t just get “distracted” nebulously or have “not enough time in a day to pray” out of the blue: it’s caused by your POSSESSIVENESS. When you grasp your job, your things, your hobbies, your magazines, your facebook, your TV shows, your shopping… you get sidetracked from your pursuit. Thus, this subject really IS a perfectly natural topic for the beginning of our study on pursuing God.
Okay. So. I figured I really should get to the bottom of this: just what DOES the Bible say about being Poor in Spirit?
Well, the verse this came from was easy. In Matthew 5, Jesus is giving His now-famous sermon (that we sometimes call “the Sermon on the Mount” since He gave it from a mountaintop) and he includes this statement:
Matthew 5:3
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
All right. So is Jesus saying we need to literally get rid of everything we have and live on the streets in cardboard boxes? I wasn’t so sure, but I decided I’d start by looking up all the verses that included the word “poor”. Yeah… interesting idea… www.biblegateway.com had 198 verses come up in the NKJV version. That would take FOREVER. So let’s look at a few highlights to see what we can figure out about being poor in spirit.
First, what does the Bible say about the poor?
In Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, we see laws and rules put in place to help the poor get along, like harvesting rules, alternate means of gathering animals for sacrifice (Leviticus 14:21), not showing partiality to the poor (Lev 19:15), having a poor man’s possessions redeemed by a relative, not letting poor people sell themselves into slavery, etc. God obviously cares about the poor if He had so much put in place to protect them and keep them going.
I like this one in Leviticus 19, about how farmers weren’t supposed to “sweep clean” their fields, but leave the leftovers for the poor to get:
Leviticus 19:9-10
‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. And you shall not glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather every grape of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the stranger: I am the LORD your God.’
Next, here’s an interesting verse about God’s role in poverty, sung by Hannah. She is praising the LORD and sings of His holiness and matchlessness before describing His sovereignty in all of life:
I Samuel 2:7-8
“The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up. He raises the poor from the dust, and lifts the beggar from the ash heap, to set them among princes and make them inherit the throne of glory. For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and He has set the world upon them.”
Job, also, speaks of God saving the poor:
Job 5:15-16; 34:19
“But He saves the needy from the sword, from the mouth of the mighty, and from their hand. So the poor have hope, and injustice shuts her mouth.”
“Yet He is not partial to princes, nor does He regard the rich more than the poor; for they are all the work of His hands.”
Elsewhere in the Old Testament, we see the poor being oppressed, needy, killed, left with nothing, fatherless, friendless, helpless, TOTALLY undesirable… but we also see what God thinks about that:
Psalm 9:18
“For the needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall not perish forever.”
Psalm 12:5
“For the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now I will arise,” says the LORD; “I will set him in the safety for which he yearns.”
Psalm 35:10
“All my bones shall say, “LORD, who is like You, delivering the poor from him who is too strong for him, yes, the poor and the needy from him who plunders him?””
Psalm 40:17
“But I am poor and needy, yet the LORD thinks upon me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God.”
…and yes, I could go on and on. The Psalms’ descriptions of God’s action toward the poor are so wonderful to me.
…Okay, one more
Isaiah 25:4
“For You have been a strength to the poor, a strength to the needy in his distress, a refuge from the storm, a shade from the heat; for the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm against the wall.”
While we’re here, Isaiah has some interesting news about fasting that relates to how we treat the poor:
Isaiah 58:6-8
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring to your house the poor who are cast out; when you see the naked, that you cover him, and not hide yourself from your own flesh? Then your light shall break forth like the morning, your healing shall spring forth speedily, and your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.”
Yeah. We’re not just supposed to “fast” from something comfortable—like giving up on chocolate or whatnot—but we’re to use our fast/lack to help others. Hhm. Just an interesting side note.
Anyway, Isaiah also includes a passage that uses the word “poor” in a way that seems to better match the way it’s used in Matthew 5:
Isaiah 66:2
“For all these things My hand has made, and all those things exist,” says the LORD. “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, and who trembles at My word.”
Well, then, what does poor mean here? I don’t think it necessarily means materially poor, socially despised and helpless. I mean, maybe it does, but I’m not so sure.
When we finally arrive to the New Testament’s look at the poor, the very first words we are confronted with are those words of Jesus in Matthew 5: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs in the kingdom of heaven.” SO, up to this point, all the folks around Jesus had to go on was the OT writings on the poor. Of course, we have the advantage of the WHOLE Bible, so let’s just take a peek at what else is said about the poor in here before we draw any conclusions.
Jesus was obviously in to caring for the poor. He hung around them and was a proponent of giving to them. It was even His calling:
Matthew 19:21
Jesus said to him, “If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.”
Luke 4:18 [Jesus is reading an Isaiah prophecy that actually referred to Himself!]
“The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed;”
Luke 14:13
“But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.”
Check out what Paul has to say about Jesus:
2 Corinthians 8:9
“For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become right.”
WHOA, hold the phones for a moment. Jesus became poor… He was poor in spirit… He was our perfect example of being poor in spirit then. Okay. So how was He poor? Well, yeah, physically He didn’t have a lot; His job description included a lot of roaming around and no permanent house (Jesus said in Luke 9:58, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”)
SO… what is this telling me about being “poor in spirit”?
Poor folks obviously don’t possess a lot, which means they’re not tied down to a lot. I know, I know, that’s pointed out a lot. But still… I see how it’s true. And, as we discussed in our Sunday School class with the story of Abraham sacrificing Isaac, “blessed are the poor in spirit” doesn’t mean God’s suddenly going to ask for everything you own—but He wants you to be willing to give it up if you have to. Not holding tightly. Just as Jesus said:
John 12:25
“He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
So. Got it. Poor in spirit = not being possessive of the things God has given us. When you let go of whatever you’re grasping (hobbies, children, TV, thoughts, money… not easy stuff!) and give it to God, it’s really in the safest place it can be.
But what else?
I’m noticing that the poor are often oppressed (okay, understatement-o-rama. It’s all over the Old testament!). Could Jesus also mean that the poor in spirit are those who are oppressed and left because they’re His followers?
But here’s the big thing that has impressed on me. Remember how He says the poor in spirit are “blessed”? Think about this in relation to the poor. Look at all the times God says the poor are in His thoughts, He will protect them, He will arise on their behalf, He will plead their cause and uphold them, He is by their side, He will watch over them, He will treat them justly… that’s what God does for the Poor in Spirit as well!
I have the tendency to focus so much on the “poor in spirit” part of Matthew 5 that I forget about the “blessed…for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” part!
Let’s look at Matthew 5:3 in several versions to compare and see if we can get any last nuggets of meaning for tonight:
New Century Version
“They are blessed who realize their spiritual poverty, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them.”
NIV, NASB, NKJV, ESV, HCSB
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”
The Message
“You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”
New Living Translation
“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”
Amplified Bible
“Blessed (happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous—with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions) are the poor in spirit (the humble, who rate themselves insignificant), for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!”
Well. There you have it… one night’s worth of looking. Poor in spirit seems to mean those who don’t make much of themselves, who don’t find their status something to be grasped (hhmm… like Jesus, see Philippians 2), who don’t hold tightly to their possessions but give of them. They may have been blessed with a lot, but still “in spirit” they are poor—in their attitude they are willing to let go and they love God more than possessions. And when you think about how He is pursuing us, and how He is there with us and how He stands for us and by us and upholds us when we are “poor in spirit”… why wouldn’t you love Him even more?
I love how the Message says it: When there’s less of you, there’s more of His rule. May we be poor in spirit and be able to say with the Psalmist, “I am poor and needy, yet the LORD thinks upon me.” !!
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