Beatitudes Archives - Do Not Depart

Blessed Are the Persecuted? – Matthew 5:10 {Scripture Memory Challenge}

May 7, 2018 by Lisa Burgess Leave a Comment

Blessed are the persecuted. Really? Who? And how?

NOTE: This is our last week of memorizing before we take a one-week break! Weekly blog posts and weekly emails will resume on May 21.

Memorize this week

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew 5:10 (ESV)

Who are the persecuted?

Do you feel persecuted for your faith?

Sometimes we may feel persecuted. And sometimes we truly are persecuted.

But for most of us reading this in the United States, our persecution doesn’t compare to Christians facing incredible hardships in foreign countries for their faith in Jesus.

As you memorize Matthew 5:10 this week about persecution for righteousness’ sake, pray about how you can partner with God to be part of the blessing.

Because frankly, I can’t imagine feeling blessed if I were being persecuted the way some believers are being persecuted. When I read their stories, I fear I wouldn’t respond as faithfully as many of them respond.

But if Christ is true to His word, and I believe He is, then I want to take this beatitude at its face value. If Jesus declares a blessing of the kingdom on those who are persecuted, then it is so.

How can we help the persecuted?

Get educated. Pray. Give. Advocate.

Do you know which country has been #1 on the worst offenders’ list for the past 16 years?
North Korea
How many Christians experience high levels of persecution in the most persecuted countries?
215 million
What percentage of Christians experience persecution worldwide?
1 in 12
(per Open Doors statistics)

Maybe we aren’t being persecuted now. Then what better time to bless those who are being persecuted! Let’s stand with our brothers and sisters around the world.

Blessed Are the Pure in Heart for They Shall See God

April 26, 2018 by Patti Brown 1 Comment

Every morning, before I get up, there is one thing I must do. No matter how early or late, no matter what else I have decided to do that morning, I absolutely must put my glasses on. Without them my bedroom is a blur of soft colors, and my path is treacherous. Seeing clearly is essential to my day.

Today’s Beatitude is Matthew 5:8:

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. — Matthew 5:8

My glasses are the only way I will be able to see the path out of my room. And having a pure heart is the only way to see God.

What Is a Pure Heart?

Who shall ascend the hill of the Lord? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. — Psalm 24:3-4

A pure heart is a heart that can stand before God. We might say a pure heart is about holiness.

Purity of heart consists in that steady direction of the soul toward the divine life which excludes every other object from the homage of the heart. — John Peter Lange

When our hearts are inclined toward anything other than God, we are double-minded. But how difficult it is to be single-mined in our devotion to God! That is because we are all sinners:

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” — 1 John 1:8

How Can I Purify My Heart?

If we are all sinners, how can it be possible to be pure at heart? Proverbs 20:9 asks, “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin’?” The answer, of course, is no one! We can not purify our own hearts. David cried out to God:

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. — Psalm 51:10

It is only through Jesus that you and I can be cleansed in our innermost being. All our hope is in Him!

Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure. — 1 John 3:2-3

My glasses correct my broken eyes so that I can see the world around me clearly, and Jesus corrects my broken heart so that I may see the Father.

The “pure in heart” exhibit a single-minded devotion to God that stems from the internal cleansing created by following Jesus. Holiness is a prerequisite for entering God’s presence. — Craig Blomberg

Results of a Pure Heart

What is the result of a pure heart? Matthew 5:8 tells us that those with pure hearts will see God!

We won’t visibly see God on this side of heaven, but when Jesus dwells within us, we see His transforming power, and His beautiful life-giving work. He blesses us by allowing us to participate in that work! Cleansed hearts are hearts that are able to truly love:

Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart — 1 Peter 1:22

The aim of our charge is love that issues from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. — 1 Timothy 1:5

And the great joy of our hearts, the eternal happiness we look forward to, is seeing the Lord God face to face:

No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. — Revelation 22:3-4

Blessed indeed are we who serve the Almighty God!
Our hearts are mended and our hope secure!

For further study:
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart, for They Shall See God by RC Sproul
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart by John Piper
Pure in Heart by Billy Graham
Blessed Are the Pure in Heart, for They Shall See God excerpts from Gregory of Nyssa and Augustine
What does it mean to be pure in heart?
What does it really mean for believers to see God?

The Beatitudes on DoNotDepart:
Read more of our series on the Beatitudes
Join us in memorizing the Beatitudes

Blessed are the pure in heart. #BeautifulBeatitudes

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Jesus cleanses our hearts so that we may see God face to face. #BeautifulBeatitudes

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How Is Your Mourning Blessed? {Beautiful Beatitudes Series}

April 12, 2018 by Lisa Burgess 25 Comments

We’re looking at the Beatitudes from Matthew 5 this month. Join us today for Matthew 5:4, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

When We Cry

“I’ll give you something to cry about!”

I hope you’ve never heard those words said to you in an outburst of anger.

But if you have heard them, it was probably when you were already crying, right? And you might have thought, but not replied out loud, “No thank you, I already have enough to cry about.”

When we’re sad and in pain, we don’t want more sadness or more pain.

When Jesus sat down on a mountain two thousand years ago, crowds of people gathered around Him. People who knew sadness, people who knew pain. They’d been living under foreign Roman tyranny for years. Their religion was under ridicule. Their health care options were unspeakably bad.

Yet within the first five minutes of His talk, Jesus tells them this:

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”
Matthew 5:4

What did He mean? How would they interpret that?

How do we interpret it?

Comfort of Companionship

We, too, know mourning. Life hurts. Sad things happen to everybody. Friends betray, jobs disappear, bodies fail. Some is brought on by our own doing, some by the hands of others, and some just because this world is a fallen place. Every life has storms.

We want the pain to go away.

Is that what Jesus is promising here?

And do we have a right to be disappointed when we’re not comforted out of our pain?

But look closer at His words. Jesus wasn’t promising pain removal. Instead, He was assuring them of the comfort of companionship in it.

How Do I Get the Blessing?

The Beatitudes aren’t a legalistic series of do’s and don’t’s to guarantee blessedness. The Beatitudes are truth statements about gifts of grace we receive in the Kingdom.

We don’t have to do anything to receive the blessings. They come with our inheritance.

And our inheritance includes that all our mourning is only temporary.

Knowing it will get better later can make it a little better right now.

But what about when we’re too sad or pained to even hold hope? Hope is still there anyway.

Once the Kingdom came and we were accepted in, it never goes away. Our comfort isn’t solely dependent on our faithfulness to God, but on God’s faithfulness to us.

Even when we can’t keep open the door of hope, Jesus can. We may see a slammed door.

But Christ’s light can seep underneath even closed doors.

Christ as Hope

Christ lives in us so Hope lives with us. In our mourning, regardless of its source—whether it’s from a tragedy unfolding in front of us or from a sin we can’t beat down or from someone else’s poor decisions—Hope won’t abandon us.

Jesus will never say to us: “I’ll give you something to cry about!” Instead, Jesus cries with us. His companionship is our blessing.

We always have reason to hope. Because we always have Christ. And Christ is Hope.

That is comfort.

How is your mourning blessed? If Christ lives in you, Hope lives with you. #BeautifulBeatitudes

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When has comfort evaded you? How do you find hope in pain? Please share in the comments.

The Beautiful Beatitudes – A New Series

April 5, 2018 by Ali Shaw 2 Comments

The Beatitudes are among the most quoted words of Jesus. This month, we’ll be starting a new series where we’ll look intently at some of the beautiful eight promises that Christ poured out on expectant, eager ears during His Sermon on the Mount.

What are Beatitudes?

By simple definition, a beatitude is a declaration of blessedness. (For word nerds like me, it comes from the Latin word, beatitudinem, which means “state of blessedness.”) Promises of blessings were given for those who had responded to the call of repentance (Matthew 4:17) and entered a relationship with the Savior.

In other words, those promises are for us!

Each beatitude shows a blessing deeper than mere earthly happiness. Instead they point to spiritual joy that can’t be taken or shaken, no matter what sorrows, griefs, or hardships occur.

Read what Spurgeon says about The Beatitudes:

See how Jesus begins his Sermon on the Mount, he begins with benedictions. He is a cloud that is full of rain, and that empties itself upon the earth. The moment you begin to know Christ, you begin to have blessings; and the more you know of him, the more blessed you will be. – Charles Spurgeon

Jesus often teaches deep, complex truths in easy to understand ways. The Beatitudes are no exception. Each beatitude lists a simple promise of blessing and the following result for those who have chosen to answer His call of invitation to enter into His Kingdom.

Yes, like Spurgeon said, the more we know of Him, the more blessed we will be!

But what does “Blessed” mean?

According to HELPS Word-Studies the word “blessed” used in the Beatitudes is the word “makários (from mak-, ‘become long, large’) – properly, when God extends His benefits (the advantages He confers); blessed.”

The word “blessed” implies that the receiver of the blessings is in an enviable position because of the grace and extended favor that God has shown toward them. We want blessings, or course!— not to be enviable to others, but to receive more of His goodness.

Oh, yes, we are blessed because of Him. And we are blessed because of the great love and grace He extends to us!

If you’re joining us for “Teach Us, Jesus”, our current memorization challenge (pssst, it’s not too late to join!!), you’ll know that we’ll soon be memorizing these beatitudes. We hope you’ll join us for that and also for this series as we sit with Jesus and study His teaching.

Do you love The Beatitudes? How have Jesus promises encouraged you?

Blessings, friends!
Ali