Poverty of spirit

2011 has come and gone, and we are in awe of God’s faithfulness!  It was truly a difficult year, but without regrets. 

 

We recently got back from visiting friends in Arkansas, and in one of our visits I was asked a question; “If you had to sum up your whole year, what would you say?”  I didn’t have to think very long on this, I answered, “Poverty of spirit.”  What do I mean?  Well, for one of my final papers I had to write on Matthew 5-7, the Sermon on the Mount.  I was doing a word study and I started with the beatitudes of course, and each one was truly smacking me because I could see how God had been dealing with us throughout the year to birth these things within us.  I mean, I could draw so many lessons from everything we have gone through!  But, there was an underlying lesson in everything and it is also the foundation of the entire sermon:

 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”  (Matthew 5:3)

The definition of the word “poor” in Greek is; reduced to beggary, destitute of wealth, influence, position, honor, helpless, powerless to accomplish an end.

There is more, but you get the point.  This struck me!  Out of everything we had been going through God was making me aware of my poverty, my inability to accomplish anything within of myself.  Constantly reducing me to the point of beggary, showing me that my faith isn’t a “crutch” like some may call it but rather my wheel chair!  

When was the last time we came before the Lord begging, not for something we wanted or needed Him to do, but rather in realization of our GREAT need for Him just because of who He is in relation to who we are?  I am not talking about accepting Him as our savior, but rather the fact that we need Him to simply walk out this life He has called us too.  Let’s say you're standing in front of a window looking out at the winter cold.  You see the people outside shoveling snow, when someone comes in to get warm and makes the statement, "MAN!  It’s cold outside!" and you respond, "Yes, I know."

But in all honesty you don't really know, you just made a logical deduction of the facts before you.  It's the winter season, there is snow outside, people are dressed for winter, so therefore logically it's cold, but you don't have a firsthand experience of how truly cold it is.

It's the same with poverty of spirit, we know that God can heal the sick, part the Red Sea, knows more about us than we do and He has Genesis 1 on His resume, so because I can't do any of those things, then yes, I am poor in spirit and I need Him.  But many of us haven't had a firsthand encounter of how depraved we are, how powerless we are to change anything of ourselves, how truly poor we are.

We must ask the Lord to show us how poor we are, because until we come into contact with that, we will never be able to do any of the other beatitudes let alone anything else the Bible commands.  It all starts with the first beatitude, we can't be meek without being poor, we can't be pure in heart without being poor, we can't inherit the kingdom of heaven without being poor (Matt. 5:3).

This isn't to give an excuse to lay back and say' "well I can't do anything God has to do it."  No, we can't do God's part and He won’t do ours.  Our part is an active surrendering to Him daily, to “pick up our cross and follow Him.”

"And He said to all, "If anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.  For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it."  (Luke 9:23-24)

I can’t tell you how many times the Lord had me on my face crying out.  I felt like a bumbling idiot at times, (see blog Wait for the mailman!!! for example), and when I final got to the point where I realized and confessed that I couldn’t fix or change anything then God began to direct me.  (see blog, I want to be like Mary)

He told me to live my life leaning hard into Him.  He showed me, the less I pray the more it’s a declaration to Him that I can do “this” in my own strength and the more I prayed was a declaration to Him of how much I needed Him.  Once I exhausted all of my plans and ideas I turned to Him, if only we would turn to Him to begin with without any plan “B’s”.  Because as long as we have a plan “B”, God will let us use plan “B”.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.  Do not be wise in your own eyes; Fear the Lord and depart from evil.  It will be health to your flesh, And strength to your bones.”  (Proverbs 3:5-8)

Isn’t it interesting that in just four verses He tells us twice not to lean on ourselves?  Wasn’t that kind of the first sin to begin with, to think that MY “knowledge of good and evil”, MY definition of what is right and wrong, over His? 

God wants our complete undivided trust and attention.  It’s the same thing the Israelites struggled with, they worshiped other gods because that was their plan “B”.  They trusted in God but wanted to “play it safe”.  “Yes we will trust in God, but just in case He doesn’t come through, we will worship this Asherah Pole for fertility and the life of our children.”  (Exodus 20:3, 1 Kings 14:15)

It wasn’t so much that Israel wanted to do demon worship, they just wanted a better quality of life.  Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly demonic forces behind idol worship, but that wasn’t their focus.  Kind of makes me wonder how God feels about all of our “just in case plans”?  Or what kind of demon worship we’re unintentionally involved in?

I’m not saying we need to get rid of anything, I’m not God, take it up with Him.  I know what I needed to get rid of, and I’m still in the process of “cleaning house”.  But just a thought, does the thought of having to give up your insurance, retirement, savings or whatever you have that might be a god before Him, your plan “B”, leave you feeling a little reduced to beggary, destitute of wealth, influence, position, honor, helpless, powerless to accomplish an end.  Kind of hurts doesn’t it.  (See blog, What is your focus?)

God was constantly reminding me about the seed that fell among the thorns and was warning me that I was allowing the cares of this life to choke me out (Matthew 13:22).  There were even times that because of my finances, I would allow fear to creep in.  God took me to Mark 4 and what leaped off the page was, “He said to His disciples, “Why are you so afraid?  Do you still have no faith?”  (see blog, Faith)

God wants our complete undivided faith, trust, and attention, and in order to do that He had to show me that I couldn’t rely on my plan “B’s”.  To live life leaning hard into Him, is to be in constant prayer and not moving until….. 

Prayer isn’t an addition to our walk with Christ, it is our life line to our walk with Christ.  When the disciples came to Jesus in Luke 11, they didn’t ask Him to teach them how to preach, teach, do miracles, or how to run board meetings, have better finances or 10 steps to a better marriage.  They asked, “Lord, teach us to pray….”  They connected the dots, that in order to live as Jesus lived and to preach, teach and do miracles as He did, they needed to pray as He prayed.

Prayer and reading the Word are essential, throw in some fasting and you are tenderizing your heart and increasing your capacity to receive more of Him, from Him.  To pick up our cross daily and deny ourselves is to actively surrender our own will and conform to His.  But we can only do this with His help.  I know that sounds like a contradiction.  We must do it; but He must because we can’t.  It’s a divine tension that we live in.

   “My soul clings to You; Your right hand upholds me.”  Psalm 63:8

Are we holding on, or is He holding us?  We must cling to Him in prayer, fasting, and reading of His word.  Because we are too poor to accomplish anything within ourselves.

I want to close with this story of a father who took his son to the carnival.

A father took his son to the carnival, and once there the father realized why he hated the carnival.  He couldn’t stand rides that spin!  Of course, his son wanted to get on the merry-go-round, and being a good dad he takes him.  The father puts his son on a horse and stands next to him.  The man that controls the ride told the father that he couldn’t stand, but had to sit on one of the horses.  And of course, the horse he sits on is one that moves.  As the ride is spinning and going up and down, the father begins to turn pale and feel sick.  The controller saw him, tapped him on the shoulder, and told him to come where he was standing, in the center.  Once there the father began to feel better.

The ride controller didn’t stop the ride from spinning and going up and down, he just pulled the dad to the center, where there was peace.  We are often stuck on the outer edges of our circumstances feeling all the waves and the spinning. We feel sick and can’t find our way out.  We can’t stop our circumstances nor can we change it.  If we would just pray and set our gaze upon Him and not the waves, draw close to the center, close to the One controlling the ride.  We will find a peace that passes our understanding.