Tag Archives: Sermon on the Mount

It’s a Good Way to Live, February 17, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Do not cross the double line. Do not pass. Do not enter. Do not steal. Do not kill. Do not lie. Do not commit adultery. Do not covet. Do not. Do not. Do not.

Have you ever noticed how negative life can sometimes get if we are not careful? We can get trapped in the “do not” whirlpool and feel like everything around us is taboo. Anything we do will bring lightning bolts down on our heads. Growing up, I felt that way. I grew up in an era when the church laid down lots of rules and regulations and said if you don’t do any of these things, you’ll be alright with God.

It’s funny how easy it is to get trapped in that mentality. The church still has that problem in many ways. The Pharisees still live in too many of our congregations. They quickly point to the things we shouldn’t do and tell us how evil we must be because of our behavior.

Jesus never seemed to work that way. It seems to me that he operated from a different point of view. It’s not that he didn’t understand the laws the Pharisees preached. His Sermon on the Mount proved that and went far beyond what they held as the universal standard. You can hear his explanation of the law in his words recorded by Matthew:

“You have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not murder’; and ‘whoever murders shall be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that if you are angry with a brother or sister, you will be liable to judgment; and if you insult a brother or sister, you will be liable to the council; and if you say, ‘You fool,’ you will be liable to the hell of fire.

So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift. Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court with him, or your accuser may hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the guard, and you will be thrown into prison. Truly I tell you, you will never get out until you have paid the last penny.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go into hell.

“It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

“Again, you have heard that it was said to those of ancient times, ‘You shall not swear falsely, but carry out the vows you have made to the Lord.’ But I say to you, Do not swear at all, either by heaven, for it is the throne of God, or by the earth, for it is his footstool, or by Jerusalem, for it is the city of the great King. And do not swear by your head, for you cannot make one hair white or black. Let your word be ‘Yes, Yes’ or ‘No, No’; anything more than this comes from the evil one. (Matthew 5:21-37 NIV)

These demands certainly go much further than the Pharisees required, but Jesus puts a spin on what he asks of us that the temple could never do. Remember the two commands he says sums everything up? He puts those in pretty positive terms. Love God and love others.

How much more positive can his commands get? He gives us two and says he will send his Spirit to empower us to keep these two commands. He gives us simple rules to follow, then tells us he will provide us with the means to do it — what an extraordinary deal.

We could never keep the old rules. Jesus comes and explains the old rules start with thoughts we harbor and mull over until they become more than just ideas. They grow into acts of disobedience. Murder begins with anger. Rape and adultery start with lust. Theft grows from the seed of covetousness. Acts of disobedience don’t just happen; they germinate from ideas planted in our minds because of the evil desires within us. We take the God-given emotions and feelings we have and allow Satan to twist them and try to satisfy them in unhealthy disobedient ways to gain temporary pleasure.

Those who listen to Jesus’ words and follow him have found the promise God gave to the Israelites pretty applicable in their everyday life as well. Moses shared it with them in Deuteronomy 30, and it goes like this:

See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God that I am commanding you today, by loving the LORD your God, walking in his ways, and observing his commandments, decrees, and ordinances, then you shall live and become numerous, and the LORD your God will bless you in the land that you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you do not hear, but are led astray to bow down to other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall perish; you shall not live long in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and possess.

I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the LORD your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him; for that means life to you and length of days, so that you may live in the land that the LORD swore to give to your ancestors, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. (Deuteronomy 30:15-20 NIV)

I think I’ll choose life by following his decrees as simple as they are: love God and love others. It’s a good way to live.

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible-based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

Spice Up Your Life, February 10, 2020

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Thanks for joining me today for “A Little Walk with God.” I’m your host Richard Agee.

Not often enough, I take it upon myself to clean out our refrigerator or pantry. When I take on the fridge, I’m sometimes surprised at the small containers that hold some mysterious gelatinous substance that no longer resembles the original product the box once held. I sometimes try to label those things I put in there (usually called leftovers), so I know what and when they first found their way onto the shelves, but I seldom keep up and so continue to find those mystery boxes.

The pantry task is even more fun. I hate to admit it, but even after trying to do a thorough job every once in a while, but obviously not often enough, I’m surprised to find products that expired, not months but years earlier. I’m not sure how that happens. I’m beginning to think elves come in at night and change the labels just to give my daughter and grandkids, who usually prompt me and help me take not on the task, a good laugh. We fill bags of expired stuff, drag it to the trash, and in a few months, seem to repeat the same process again and again and again.

A month or so ago, I decided to do the same thing with our spices. They sit in a separate space in our kitchen because we want them handy for cooking. Makes sense, right? The problem is they don’t get into the same not often enough clean this stuff out routine. I was a little more than embarrassed when I went through our spices. We used to joke that we have a kitchen because it came with the house, but we do a lot more cooking at home now that both of us are mostly retired. The expiration date on spices becomes a little more important. I don’t think that makes any of them dangerous, but it certainly makes them less potent in recipes.

So I started the process. I began to go through our two shelves of spices and divided the expired from the nearly expired, and the not expired. You know where this is going.

The three piles were not even by any measure. I think I counted the not expired collection on one hand and those probably because they had no expiration date on them. The nearly expired pile was smaller. If I remember correctly, two would expire within a couple of months. Then I looked at the heap of spices with expiration dates long past. Remember, this sorting happened at the end of 2019. I found spices that expired in the 1990s. Did you get that? Expired more than 20 years ago! How could that happen? And what good were they if they were that old?

I’m replacing spices as I need them. Most of those expired ones, we seldom use, which is probably why they found their way to the back of the shelf and ignored for so long. But the exercise caused me to think about a couple of verses in the lectionary from this week.

Matthew records what we call Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. Early in that sermon, he says this: “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything, but is thrown out and trampled underfoot.”(Matthew 5:13 NIV)

Today salt remains salty a long time because of the way we process it. Sodium chloride the chemical name, and the two ingredients in pure salt can be extracted and purified to a high degree so that our salt stays pure for decades. That wasn’t true in Jesus’ day. They used sea salt and sea salt loses its saltiness. Why? Because it isn’t pure. It has other minerals in it that, over time, break down the chemical composition of the sodium chloride that is also in the mixture.

Does that mean sea salt is bad? No, some of the minerals are good for you. It’s just that those same minerals reduces the longevity of the salt’s properties. The people of Jesus’ day understood that very well. It’s the only salt they could buy. It’s the only salt they used. They replaced it often because it lost its potency and then could no longer be used as a spice or preservative, one of its most important uses to keep meat and fish from decaying.

Because we buy our salt from the grocery store and seldom kill, butcher, and salt meat and fish to preserve it, few of us understand the importance of these properties. We know salt as a spice to make things taste better, and we might use it to remove ice from our sidewalks, but we seldom try to save meat throughout the year by salting or smoking it. We just freeze it or more often go to the store and buy it fresh without knowing or caring how it appeared on the shelf. We just wonder why the price keeps going up.

Take a look at Jesus’ words again. “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored?”

As his followers, we live here, we hope for heaven, but we’re not there yet. We are the salt, not of heaven, but of the earth. Live now, be salt now. Be the spice that makes the world better now. That’s part of the problem the world sees with Christians today. What are we doing to make the world a better place? If we are truly the substance in this place to make the world better the way salt makes food taste better, the world should recognize it.

I’m not a FaceBook person, partly because too often when I peak at entries from many who call themselves Christians, I have seen words that certainly don’t make the world better. I don’t see comments that lift people. I see judgment, criticism, hate, the things Jesus talked about with the Pharisees. I quickly retreat from the page before I get caught up in the vitriol that spews from the keyboards that I’m sure would never come from their lips if they were standing face to face with you. We hide behind the screen and seem to think we can say and do anything. Not so. I think we will be judged for every word we write.

The sea salt that lost its saltiness became good for nothing. People threw it out. The only positive property at that point, let it kill the grass and weeds that grew up in the road. People threw their useless salt on the path to kill the undergrowth and keep it clean; well, not so clean, but vegetation-free.

So what message does Jesus give us in these words? We’re salt. We’re supposed to add spice to the world and make it better. We’re sprinkled in the world like salt is sprinkled on food. But one last thing. Remember Jesus talked about salt losing its saltiness. It happened. Everyone knew it. Salt expired which means when you bought it, you started using it right away. You didn’t hold on to it and put it away in the back of the cabinet like my 1990s spices. You kept it up front and used it often, then went and got some more.

It’s like the daily bread for which he taught to us ask. Get enough for today and use it up. Then get more and use it up. Then get more and use it up. Rinse and repeat as the bottle says. We are the salt of the world so he expects us to be used up, restored, and used up again like those little bottles of spices. That was the problem with many of my expired spices, I bought the big bottles, cheaper per ounce to save money, then threw most of them away, wasting more money because I didn’t use them up. The small bottles would have been cheaper in the long run because I threw away spices I didn’t use.

I’m learning. Fresh is better in cooking. Fresh is better in spiritual warfare. Fresh experience is better in sharing what God is doing in your life. Fresh is better to act as salt in the world. Let Jesus spice up your life so you can make the world a better place as his salt in a world that truly needs it more than ever.

Scriptures marked NIV are taken from the NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (NIV): Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION ®. Copyright© 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™. Used by permission of Zondervan

The kingdom way (Luke 6:27-31) October 3, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Numbers 29-32

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 6:27-31
Jesus: If you’re listening, here’s My message: Keep loving your enemies no matter what they do. Keep doing good to those who hate you. Keep speaking blessings on those who curse you. Keep praying for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, offer the other cheek too. If someone steals your coat, offer him your shirt too. If someone begs from you, give to him. If someone robs you of your valuables, don’t demand them back. Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; do the same for them.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. We learn that ‘golden rule’ as a kid, but do we really understand what Jesus meant by it? We like to send it out to others as they rail against us or sometimes when our anger starts to boil over and we’re about to levy some pretty harsh punishment against someone for the wrongs they committed against us. At times like those we stop and quote that verse to ease the pain of whatever punishment or action is about to happen.

That’s what most people think about when they read that isolated verse out of context. But that’s what I like about the translation I’ve been sharing with you the last few years. The Voice gets it right, even if you pull that verse out of the rest of the paragraph. Listen to it again.

“Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; do the same for them.”

Now lets go back and put the verse back into the context in which Jesus was talking to those who were listening to His sermon and see what He really means.

Remember the Jews lived in an occupied country. Israel had not enjoyed political self rule as a nation since the Babylonians laid final siege to the city and destroyed it in 587 BC. At this time, they lived under the rule of the Roman Empire. Soldiers walked the streets constantly. They had the authority to press individuals into service for them to carry their loads, give them food or shelter, take whatever implements or utensils they might need. The Roman soldiers had significant leeway from Rome to do as they pleased in the occupied nations.

Fortunately, most of the soldiers were relatively decent human beings and wanted to keep peace. The officers who led them knew that if they went too far, the entire populace might rise up against them and there were not enough soldiers in all of Israel to stop a massive uprising against the garrisons within the sound of their reach. Rome wielded great power against those she conquered, but Rome also knew her power was limited to the fear they could induce and that fear was based on the greatest number of people fearing death at the hands of her soldiers in battle.

Why the short history lesson? Because Jesus was talking to a crowd that understood their predicament with Rome. Most hated the soldiers who came into their homes at their pleasure or ordered them to carry their baggage from town to town or took the food from their tables when food was sometimes scarce. The Jews hated the Romans for what they did and who they were as an occupying force.

Now put that verse back into context. Jesus was talking about doing all these good things for your enemies. Do all these good things for those who hate you as much as you might hate them. Walk the extra mile, turn the other check, give up your coat and cloak to your enemy. Then He adds that haunting verse at the very end of that paragraph.

“Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; do the same for them.”

What would you like someone to do for you today? Would you like someone to take you to lunch? Then find that person who is your enemy and take them to lunch. That’s what Jesus is telling this crowd and us to do.

Would you like someone to get you a new shirt or blouse? Pick out one that you really like, wrap it up and give it to that co-worker that really gets on your nerves every day. That’s what Jesus is telling this crowd and us to do.

Would you like someone to listen to your complaints without interruption? Go to the person who drives you crazy with all their complaints and just listen to them. Don’t interrupt, take notes, let them know you really care about their issues. See where you might help ease their burden because of your past experiences. That’s what Jesus is telling this crowd and us to do.

Is this an easy task? By no means. It takes Jesus living in us to accomplish what He tells us to do here. But what a difference it will make in your piece of the world when you start operating with His rules instead of the world’s. Everyone around you will think you’re crazy. But they thought He was too. Even His brothers and sisters came to get Him because they thought He lost His mind.

So what will you today for someone? Think of the kindness you wish others would show you; then find one of those folks that border on the hate list and do it for them. That’s the kingdom way.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

Upside down values (Luke 6:24-26) October 2, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Hebrews 5-7

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 6:24-26
Jesus: All you who are rich now, you are in danger
for you have received your comfort in full.
All you who are full now, you are in danger
for you shall be hungry.
All you who laugh now, you are in danger
for you shall grieve and cry.
And when everyone speaks well of you, you are in danger
for their ancestors spoke well of the false prophets too.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Jesus’ words should scare all of us who live in the United States. We don’t think much about that because only a small percentage of us have traveled outside the country. The average American thinks of the wealthy as that bunch of billionaires that own multiple mansions and float around on their personal yachts. But the truth is, the average American is wealthy compared to the rest of the world’s population. We’re really pretty privileged. Most of us have not one, but a couple of cars in the drive, we probably have two or three televisions in the house. I would guess every adult in most households has their own cell phone. Most of us eat every day and have more than two suits of clothing in our closets.

Jesus tells us we are in danger. We have enough to be comfortable without asking for outside help. We have enough to eat without wondering if God will supply our daily bread from some unknown source. We go about life without calling on Him every day for the essentials of life. We get very comfortable with the things we have that keep us just out of the level of suffering physically in various areas of our physical life. And if Satan can keep us focus on our physical comforts, he wins.

But if we get too comfortable now and forget where the essentials of life come from, if we forget that God supplies all good things, we will lose our way and find ourselves in a place of eternal punishment instead of eternal reward. At the end of time, comfort will suddenly become a thing of the past if comfort is what we concentrate on right now. Seventy years is a pretty short time compared to eternity. Not even a breath or a blink in comparison. So Jesus warns us that if we focus on wealth and comfort, we are focusing on the wrong thing.

How about hunger? Isn’t it important to eat well in order to stay fit and healthy so we can carry out the mission Jesus gave us? Sure it is, but do we focus more on food or on getting the message out? Having been to a lot of church dinners, I sometimes ask myself the question, “Do we have those big fellowship dinners to stay at church or do we stay at church to have those big fellowship dinners?” There is a big difference to God in how you answer that question. But once again, satiating ourselves with earths pleasures, whether food, or money, or job, or fame, or anything else isn’t the right answer. When we start looking for satisfaction from anything other than the joy that comes from God’s spirit in us, we are in danger.

Jesus told those on the hillside that day that those who laugh are in danger. Does that mean we should be somber all the time and not enjoy life? No. I think Jesus’ life was filled with laughter. He would not have attracted children to Him the way He did if He didn’t laugh. But I think when we seek solely to find happiness instead of joy, we are in trouble. God cursed this world because sin entered into it through our disobedience. It will never be the kind of place we should fully enjoy because of the flawed nature we gave it. We can find and experience moments of happiness, but we should not be content to stay in this world. We should not be content with this place. He tells us when we get to the point that we find all our happiness here, we are in danger. There is a better place. We can have joy because of His spirit in us, but His spirit assures us that we are not citizens of this world, but gives us hope for a better tomorrow.

Jesus also tells us to beware of the praise of men. When we seek the approval of those whose values are driven by the world instead of seeking God’s approval, we are in grave danger. The world’s values are upside down. Satan is the father of lies and traps us with his lies. He betrays us and pulls us into his schemes by luring us with the physical things of this world and through the false praise of others. When we get trapped into seeking the praise of others, we are in danger of losing our way on the narrow path that Jesus urges us to follow.

We live in a minefield on this planet called earth. It’s values tell us to be comfortable, satisfy your deepest desires, find happiness wherever you can, gain the praise of others. But when we pursue those values, we pursue them in opposition to the will and obedience of our heavenly Father. It is far better to suffer a short time here than to suffer eternally, don’t you think?

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

We are blessed (Luke 6:20-21) September 30, 2016

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Jonah

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Luke 6:20-21
Jesus: All you who are poor, you are blessed
for the kingdom of God belongs to you.
All you who are hungry now, you are blessed
for your hunger will be satisfied.
All you who weep now, you are blessed
for you shall laugh!

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

I always find it interesting to compare the various stories and sermons in the different gospels. We now come to the famous Sermon on the Mount as Luke records it, and particularly the first section known as the Beatitudes. Matthew and Mark record these first verses in a much more spiritual context as they share that those who are poor in spirit are blessed and those who hunger after righteousness will be filled. But Luke leaves out the object of those longings in his gospel.

Luke, the physician thinks about the physical aspects of those Jesus addressed that day. The poor did not fare well in Luke’s day. They labored hard for little. The poor were considered lesser beings than even slaves. Slaves belonged to their masters and were well fed, clothed, housed. Good mastered took good care of their slaves. But the poor, that was another matter. They didn’t have enough to afford adequate shelter from the heat and cold so suffered injury because of it. They didn’t have enough clothing to keep it clean and in good repair to protect them from the elements during the day. They didn’t have enough to eat and so malnutrition was always just around the corner. Sickness took a harder toll on the poor because they didn’t have the means to care for themselves or their family. Life was hard for the poor.

Luke recorded the words that those who suffer in poverty in this world won’t carry that burden into the next if they follow God’s commands. They will have the riches of heaven at their disposal. No one will be able to call them poor. In fact, if you think you are poor now, but you are a child of God, you are anything but poor. The kingdom of God belongs to you. Can you imagine what that means? No, you really can’t. It’s really beyond anything we can imagine.

Not many of us know hunger. We talk about being hungry, but few of us in the country know real hunger. The Army took me to a few places where I saw hunger, though. Children with empty, vacant looks in their eyes not knowing when or where their next meal would come from. Even then, their meal would consist of just a few scraps, nothing compared to the feasts we enjoy at every meal. As a physician, Luke dealt with the hungry often. Hunger leads to malnutrition, illness, and diseases.But the hungry now, if they believe in Jesus for their salvation, will not carry that hunger into the world to come. Their hunger will be satisfied. They will eat until they want nothing else to eat. The hungry will be satisfied.

Luke also saw many who mourned. In his day, physicians couldn’t save as many as they do today. Luke didn’t have the technology or the array of medicines we have today. Many died. Many became permanently disabled. Health became a cause for much suffering and as a physician, Luke was in the middle of it often. It’s never easy to console those who have lost loved ones or who struggle through the rest of their life with disabilities they know will never improve. The grieving process is real. But Luke hears the message. Knowing Jesus as Savior can turn mourning into laughter because we know this is not the end. We can face the suffering of these few years in this life because we know a better one is coming.

Matthew and Mark, notably heard the Beatitudes from a spiritual perspective. Jesus spoke the words as He shared the good news that God’s kingdom is near. His kingdom is not of this world, but is housed in and entered through a spiritual realm. His kingdom is not seen in this place. It exists everywhere, just as He does, but we cannot see it with our physical eyes.

Luke on the other hand, dealt with the physical maladies of people every single day and heard Jesus’ message with a promise for relief from the physical maladies of life as much as the spiritual maladies of life. Jesus gives us hope for a future absent the plagues of this physical frame. It is no wonder Luke recorded the sermon differently than Matthew and Mark.

So what does this difference in how the gospels record the Beatitudes mean to us today? We can know that our future home with Jesus touches every aspect of us. The Jews understood we cannot separate our body, soul, and spirit. We are one entity and each part influences the others. And as we give ourselves to Christ, He gives us hope for the future. We will someday live with Him with new bodies absent the poverty and hunger and grief we experience now. We are blessed because of Him.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.

The Be Attitudes (Matthew 5:3-12) January 7, 2016

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Today’s Podcast

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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – Job 1-2

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 5:3-12
Jesus: Blessed are the spiritually poor—the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
Blessed are those who mourn—they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek and gentle—they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness—they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful—they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are those who are pure in heart—they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers—they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness—the kingdom of heaven is theirs.
And blessed are you, blessed are all of you, when people persecute you or denigrate you or despise you or tell lies about you on My account. But when this happens, rejoice. Be glad. Remember that God’s prophets have been persecuted in the past. And know that in heaven, you have a great reward.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

We call the first part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Matthew, the Beatitudes. I sometimes refer to them as the Be Attitudes, though. I think, Jesus really wants us to get past what we usually want from the definition we give this portion of the sermon. You see, the word beatitude means supreme blessedness; exalted happiness. It’s one of those “what’s in it for me” kind of words.

Sure, that’s the end result of the life of those who follow the pattern Jesus gives to those who listened to Him on the mountainside that day, but He wants to convey so much more to us if we will listen to His words. What Jesus tells us in this short sermonette gives us insight into the transformed spirit He puts within us as we let Him take charge of our life. He changes our attitude toward life and toward others so that we can truly have that supreme blessedness and exalted happiness we talk about in the beatitudes.

The secret to the happy life, Jesus tells us, is not in the outcome of these verses, but in the input. We get the blessing by changing our attitude toward life. When we demonstrate the characteristics He outlines in these verses, we begin to reap the rewards, but not before. So as we recognize we are poor in spirit, as we mourn our condition, as we walk through life with a meek and gentle spirit, then, God begins to bless us with the rewards He talks about in these verses. We inherit heaven, comfort, and the earth. We begin to experience real joy. We understand as our character changes what blessings and exalted happiness is all about.

We don’t understand happiness in this life because too often we chase the wrong things. Sometimes we buy into the world’s lie that things we see will bring us happiness so we accumulate things. It might be houses, cars, big boy (or girl) toys that glitter and shine in the sunlight. People will ooh and ahh over them. Many will express their envy over the toys you collect. But the problem with toys of whatever shape or size, however expensive or at a bargain price, they will never satisfy.

Things bring momentary happiness and last until the next model comes out. Think about how the commercial world works. Apple is a great example. I admit I bought the first model iPhone when it came out. Steve Jobs had me hooked. I loved it because of all it could do for me. But guess what, my original iPhone didn’t last long. It’s not even supported anymore. I now own an iPhone 6 plus and it’s my fourth iPhone. I’m trying to avoid getting a 6s and waiting until at least the 7 or 8 comes out. Not sure I’ll be able to make it since I do a lot of my business on my phone. The iPhone only made me happy for a little while, now every generation of iPhone frustrates me because I know a new one will be out next year and I’ll have to get it because my old one won’t be supported much longer.

That’s what happens with every material thing. It all breaks, wears out, becomes obsolete. No matter what it is. Even silver or gold or land that all the speculators tell you will never lose value, loses value. None of it really means anything in the end. You can’t take any of it with you and what you have someone will always be trying to take from you so you’ll just worry about all that stuff anyway. Your happiness from things will always be short-lived.

Maybe you think power or prestige will make you happy. Nope. Someone will always be more powerful than you. Someone will always scheme to take your place. Someone will always attack you if you are in a place of power and leadership whether you are a great leader or a poor leader. You’ll always be looking over your back. You’ll always be watching for your enemies. You’ll always expect opposition if you chase power and prestige.

But when you work with God to let Him transform your character. When you let Him change your attitude and you live those “Be Attitudes of the Beatitudes”, you’ll find the supreme blessings, the exalted happiness, the beatitudes that come with living for the Almighty Creator of the universe. You’ll understand that things are temporal, but your changed spirit because of His spirit in you is eternal. You’ll find indescribable joy that comes from living within the kingdom of heaven even as you abide on earth.

You can be the person you were created to be with transformed attitudes shaped by the one who created all things. All it takes is letting go of yourself and following in the footsteps of the One who loves you most, Jesus, the Savior of all humankind.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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