Seeking the Life in Christ

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Blessed are The Meek

Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount

May 29, 2024

Blessed are The Meek

“God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth.”

Matthew 5:5

We know from the Gospels that the Psalms had a great influence on Jesus as he quoted them often. While he does not quote a particular psalm in the Beatitudes, the influence is clear. His pronouncement, “God blesses those who are humble, for they will inherit the whole earth” is an affirmation of the old and very wise teacher who crafted Psalm 37. The essential message of the psalm is in verses 5-6: “Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will do this: He will make your righteous reward shine like the dawn, your vindication like the noonday sun.” Jesus’ reference to the meek is for those who surrender control of their lives to God. The meek are those who are willing to be an instrument of grace used by God. This is a very profound, yet simple, way to pattern your life.

First, you commit your life to God.

Second, you exercise faith in God by trusting Him with your life.

Third, God will act.

This pattern is simple in form, but very difficult to implement in our lives. We live in a culture that values strength, independence, and self-reliance. Meekness and humility? Not so much. The psalmist is not very specific about how God will act, but the description is rather breathtaking; “. . . your vindication like the noonday sun.” The psalmist is trying to describe the wonder, beauty, and awe associated with being in the presence of God.

The reward for faithfulness to God is being in perfect peace as you rest in the presence of your Heavenly Father. Seven times the psalmist refers to the blessing of God as, “The godly will possess the land and will live there forever” (Psalm 37:29). This means the reward is eternal. This is what it means to “inherit the whole earth.”

My Takeaway: The Good News is that God’s blessings are His presence with us, now and forever.

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

These meditations are written by Alex M. Knight as he seeks the life in Christ as his way of life. The meditations are published on the BLOG, http://seekingthelifeinchrist.blogspot.com/ and they are also distributed on the Constant Contact email server. You may subscribe to this email service by sending an email to: amkrom812@gmail.com.

Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Unless otherwise indicated, all Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount

May 28, 2024

Blessed are Those Who Mourn

“God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Matthew 5:4

“God blesses those who mourn” is often quoted at funerals or when someone is going through a time of personal suffering or grief. As I noted in the preceding Beatitude, while God certainly cares deeply for all people, including those who are suffering and grieving, Jesus has in mind here those who mourn over their sins and the sins of the world.

One way to think about the core values of the life in Christ is to remember the three essential H’s:

hunger for God,

heart for people, and

hatred of sin.

Those who are blessed as spiritual beggars in the first Beatitude are spiritually poor because they have a hunger for God. Those who mourn in this Beatitude grieve for the way their sins have hurt God and diminished their own life. As a Christian, my life belongs to God; by creation and redemption, I belong to God. My sins not only cause pain and suffering in my own life, but they are also an affront to God and to Christ Jesus, “who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20b). Jesus is pronouncing a blessing on those who are brokenhearted over the way they have allowed sin to diminish their humanity. Jesus is pronouncing a blessing on those who grieve over how their sins have insulted the character and integrity of their Abba.

In the spirit of this second Beatitude, there is a verse that is often used in the liturgy for Holy Communion which I believe should be a part of our daily devotions: “If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9 NRSV).

My Takeaway: Sin is trying to live our life apart from God. I invite you to join me to contemplate all the ways, overt and subtle, we try to work out the meaning of our life on our own terms, and thus miss life with God.

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Monday, May 27, 2024

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Meditations on the Sermon on the Mount

NOTE: Today I am beginning a series of meditations on the Sermon on the Mount. This series will take us through the third week in June, and then I will begin a series on the Gospel of John.

May 27, 2024

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

“God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him, for the Kingdom of Heaven is theirs.”

Matthew 5:3

I recall hearing a speaker comment that the Sermon on the Mount is the constitution for the Christian church. I agree. It has been four years since I last wrote meditations on the Sermon on the Mount, and I am looking forward to spending the next three weeks with you in this Sermon Jesus preached on the north shore of the Sea of Galilee.

The first portion of the sermon is the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are Jesus’ description of the life in Christ. These pronouncements by Jesus reveal the character traits of the citizens of the Kingdom of God. Each of the Beatitudes begins with the statement, “Blessed are” which can also be translated, “Happy are” or “Joyful are.” Six of the Beatitudes promise a future reward; while two, “Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit” (v. 3) and “Blessed are the Persecuted” (v.10) promise a present-tense blessing.

“God blesses those who are poor” is sometimes thought of as God’s concern for the economic poor. While God certainly cares deeply for all people, including the poor, the widows and orphans, Jesus has in mind here the poor in spirit. Tom Long calls Jesus’ intended audience, “spiritual beggars” and I think that is entirely appropriate (Matthew, Thomas G. Long, (Westminster John Knox Press, Louisville 1997) page 48). When we are spiritual beggars, we recognize we need help; we recognize we can’t save ourselves, no matter what we do. All we can do is plead for mercy. Jesus says this is the key to our right-standing relationship with God.

As we continue to reflect on the Beatitudes, we will see that Jesus’ people do not have some Pollyanna, head-in-the-clouds, blind faith. Jesus’ people are most assuredly aware of the state of this world. We see the same abuses, oppression, war, sickness, droughts, and famines as the rest of the world. But we also are convinced of the coming Kingdom of God where God will make all things right. For the followers of Jesus, the Final Judgement of God, the return of Jesus, is the ultimate Good News.

My Takeaway: This first Beatitude brings a present blessing. Because the Kingdom of Heaven is ours now, we can rejoice in “our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us” (2 Corinthians 1:3b-4).

Hallelujah and amen!

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Friday, May 24, 2024

And He Was Healed!

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 24, 2024

And He Was Healed!

“All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.”

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

One of my favorite stories in the Bible is the account of Naaman’s healing in 2 Kings 5. Naaman, the mighty general of the king of Aram, suffered with leprosy and was sent to Elisha, the prophet of Israel for healing. Naaman followed Elisha’s instructions to wash seven times in the Jordan River and his “skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child’s, and he was healed!” (2 Kings 5:14). The story is multifaceted with multiple treasures to be gleaned, but I want to focus on just one small detail.

A young girl had been taken captive from Israel and given to Naaman’s wife as a maid. This servant girl triggered the events that led to Naaman’s healing when she told Naaman’s wife, “I wish my master would go to see the prophet in Samaria. He would heal him of his leprosy” (2 Kings 5:3). This simple statement is itself multifaceted as it models the life of a disciple. At its core, her statement is an affirmation that Naaman was included within the grace of the mighty God of Israel. For the possibility that he would be accepted by the LORD of Israel, Naaman risked crossing the border into Israel in pursuit of his healing.

This unnamed servant girl models for us the greatest gift of healing we can offer to our family, friends, and neighbors. God the Father Almighty, Creator of heaven and earth loves and accepts us, just as we are, not as we should be. Not just once, but every day of our lives, the Almighty seeks to be in union with us, just as we are, not as we should be. I believe when we are truly honest with ourselves, when we truly know ourselves, we will never stop rejoicing anew each day in celebration of our acceptance by God. How can we ever get over how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of Christ for us? This is the gift, the healing we can offer others. Let that sink in. We get to participate with God in showing other people the marvelous grace and love of God that comes to us just as we are, not as we should be.

Yes, we are seeking to become the person we should be, the person living the life in Christ. But we begin each day just as we are, and that person is loved and accepted by God.

My Takeaway: Do you know of a person who from all outward appearances is not, according to conventional wisdom, the person they should be? Do you believe that God loves this person just as they are? Do you believe that God loves them with the very same love and tenderness He has for Christ Jesus our Savior? Will you share this glorious truth with them?

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Thursday, May 23, 2024

What’s Your Worldview?

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 23, 2024

What’s Your Worldview?

“Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

Romans 12:2

All our thoughts, words, actions, and emotions have their origin in our unique and individual worldview. Whether we are an introvert or extravert, are analytical or more intuitive, whether we are prone to fight or flight, prefer to read or listen, to see or to do is a matter of our worldview.

Our worldview is the basis of all our interactions with other people, our culture, as well as the basis of our own self-awareness. If we were a computer, our worldview would be our operating system. Our OS is constructed in part by genetics and in part by our cultural experiences. While genetics form the foundation for the way we interact with our world, our cultural experiences can significantly enhance or diminish our natural tendencies.

As followers of Christ, we live between two realities. One reality is our natural life, our worldview, which has been fractured by sin. The other reality is our new life in Christ: “anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Our human nature drives us to meet our needs for love, acceptance and self-worth through our own strength and abilities. Against this exercise of self-effort, Jesus calls out to us, “Friends, let me show you a better way to live.” Life betwixt and between these two realities can be exhausting, which is one reason the Apostle Paul challenged us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12b NRSV).

Over and against the truth of who I am in Christ, which for me is characterized by a great optimistic hope for life together in the Kingdom of God, my fractured human reality causes me to suffer with cascading negative thoughts about my own life within the Kingdom. Together with the Apostle Paul, I call out to God, “Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death?” (Romans 7:24b). And, together with Paul, I celebrate the answer to my question, “Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 7:25a).

It is true that we are transformed by renewing our minds, by learning to know ourselves the way God knows us. Learning to live this new way of life in Christ (Romans 7:6) can be a struggle, but we are reminded by Jesus that “he will not crush the weakest reed or put out a flickering candle” (Matthew 12:20). However, neither will he lower the bar. He is determined that we will learn to live just like he did, as the beloved child of God, with whom God is delighted and upon whom His favor rests.

My Takeaway: The affirmations in this meditation are expressions of the truth of God’s love and acceptance of each of us. Fixing your mind on these great truths of God will lead you to a very wonderful place, that place where you rest in God’s smile of affection for you.

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

I Have Remained with You

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 22, 2024

I Have Remained with You

No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:39

Catherine of Siena is a saint of God in the blessed unseen cloud of witnesses that surrounds us. (Hebrews 12:1) Like Mother Teresa, she too experienced the dark night of the soul. Catherine had been blessed with an unusually intimate and vivid awareness of the presence of God in her life. She would spend hours and hours in her small room relishing in the experience of God as she prayed. Then one day she felt terribly alone. The awareness of God’s glorious presence was replaced with troubling, impure, lustful thoughts; such an experience she had never before had in her entire life. Catherine fought against her loneliness and despair for quite some time until the troubling thoughts began to fade, and her awareness of God returned. When her sense of peace returned, she questioned God: “Where were you when these foul images filled my mind?” God’s answer stunned her: “Catherine, all during these temptations I have remained with you, right in your heart. Otherwise, you could not have overcome them.”

Jesus cried out from the cross, “My God why have you forsaken me?” and only a short time later he whispered, “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” How could he make such a tender affirmation during such torment? Because his Abba Father remained with him, right in his heart.

The experience of Jesus, Catherine of Siena, and countless other saints in the cloud of witnesses that surrounds us affirms the great mystery of our faith. Because of the divine presence of Christ within us, we have been liberated from the tyranny of emotions. Our faith doesn’t depend on experiencing God in discernible ways, our faith rests only on Jesus. Because Christ is our life, God, our Father, declares that we are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. He further attests that this righteousness, since it was given to us as a gift, is not based on our behavior. We are not his righteousness or new creation because of what we did, or what we are doing, or what we have refrained from doing. Rather our right-standing with God is based on what God has done in uniting us to Christ in death, burial, resurrection, and enthronement.

My Takeaway: When all our feelings, our emotions and even the opinions of others may rail against us, our life in Christ will liberate us, and safely carry us through the storms of life.

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

My Grace Is All You Need

Meditations for Ragamuffins

May 21, 2024

My Grace Is All You Need

“Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. Each time he said, “My grace is all you need.”

2 Corinthians 12:8-9a

When I first read Brennan Manning’s memoir, All is Grace, I was a bit put off. I had greatly admired Manning for his ability to live and communicate the awesome grace of God. He had surrendered his ordination as a priest because he found true love. He married, mastered his alcoholism and the last time I talked with him when he was living in New Orleans, he was very, very happy. Then his life came unglued, again. He divorced. He again stumbled over the temptation of alcohol. He was asked how it was possible that someone who has had such powerful encounters with God’s grace could relapse. When I first read his response, I thought it was trite, flippant: “These things happen.” Upon deeper reflection, I found it simple and eloquent.

At his end, Manning was dependent on the kindness of others for his sustenance. Certainly, this was not a Hollywood, storybook ending for a man who had helped countless thousands open their hearts to the tenderness of Abba’s embrace. Maybe it wasn’t a Hollywood ending, but it was biblical. Jesus said pretty much the same thing would happen to the Apostle Peter. (John 21:18-19)

We want external recognition for the sacrifices we make for the Kingdom of God, the life in Christ. We want to be better than before. We want others to see Jesus visible in our mortal flesh. The Apostle Paul waxed poetic to Timothy when thinking about the end of his life: “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. From now on there is reserved for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give me on that day . . .” (2 Timothy 4:7b-8 NRSV). We tend to forget that at his end, Paul, alone and dismayed in a Roman jail, was beheaded.

After her death, Mother Teresa’s personal letters revealed she and Brennan Manning were two peas in a pod. "I am told God lives in me -- and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul," she wrote in one of the letters. She was both holy and human; and she and Brennan were not alone. The Apostles Peter and Paul are in the pod with them, as are countless souls who have dared to believe in the furious longing of God’s love for us, just as we are.

Manning, Teresa, and Peter stood with Paul and heard Abba say, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:8). In our human experience, some days God’s grace is more than sufficient. Some days it’s not. Some days we want more. Some days we are sure we need more than just our Abba saying, “I love you.” It has been my experience that on those latter days, He does give more. In addition to saying, “I love you” Abba says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matthew 5:3-4 NRSV).

AND, Jesus also says, “And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:20)

My Takeaway: Is that enough for you? So far, for me, it has been.

Sē’lah

(Selah is a word that appears in the Book of Psalms that I often use as the Complimentary Closing in my correspondence. Its meaning, as I use the word, is to pause and think about these things.)

Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Blessed are The Meek

Tuesday, May 28, 2024

Blessed are Those Who Mourn

Monday, May 27, 2024

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit

Friday, May 24, 2024

And He Was Healed!

Thursday, May 23, 2024

What’s Your Worldview?

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

I Have Remained with You

Tuesday, May 21, 2024

My Grace Is All You Need

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