Joined to God

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

JOINED TO GOD

Matt 5:1-3

5:1 Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to him, 2 and he began to teach them, saying:

3 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

NIV

We have come to the portion of this gospel according to Matthew that is the Lord’s sermon or teaching on the mount, although he was on the mountainside. It is also interesting that he was sitting, thus we have reason to think this was more of a teaching rather than preaching as in a sermon. This is at least how we perceived it, as we are more accustomed to sermons being delivered from a standing position. Nevertheless, that is just an observation that has little to no significance to any truth spoke by our Lord. What we are beginning now is what has been called the beatitudes, or what could be seen as attitudes to incorporate in our lives, or the be attitudes. To begin we deal with this word blessed. This is not a word that implies that God gives us some special blessing because we are poor in spirit. This word translated as blessed implies our state of mind. This is the meaning as the Hebrew word used in the 1^st Psalm when it says blessed is the man that does not walk in the counsel of the ungodly. This blessed means to be happy, which implies content, satisfied, and fulfilled, which only comes from being joined with God. Without being joined with God, or we could say accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior, which is how we are joined with God, a person cannot really be happy, content, fulfilled and satisfied. Jesus says that the person who is happy, content, fulfilled and satisfied understands the whole reason is that we are joined to God and thus will inherit the kingdom of heaven. This is because we understand all our happiness comes from the Lord and so we are poor in spirit, or we have come to the realization that we are nothing but a beggar in that we have nothing within ourselves to qualify for the kingdom of heaven, and we are totally dependent on God. Thus, being completely dependent on God is the reason we are so happy because we have everything we will ever need. This reminds us of the beggar that Peter and John stopped at on their way to the temple. They had no silver and gold, but what they had was the name of Jesus, and it not only caused the lame man to walk, but he went leaping and jumping and praising God, he was not just what we would say happy, he was overjoyed and, in his happiness, joined to God. We also see that Peter and John said they were not rich in the worldly sense, but more than wealthy because they knew Jesus, and their happiness was in him. We are happy because we know that nothing is in ourselves, and that everything is in Jesus, and thus we are joined to God and live in the kingdom of heaven.