Post by Mark on Nov 5, 2008 5:17:01 GMT -8
We read the beatitutes of Messiah’s sermon on the mount, quite often, as somewhat of a disassociated or fragmented list. If you are poor in spirit, then you will receive the kingdom of heaven; but if you are meek you will inherit the earth. This only seems to work, though, in the lesson on the mount. Elsewhere in Scripture, Messiah declares the inheritance He has to offer on the most simple and direct of terms: either you believe or you do not, either you are in the kingdom or you are not. Nowhere else in Scripture do varying degrees of inheritance seem to be parceled out based upon our qualifications.
By the time we get to His declaration concerning the state of our hearts, we begin to understand that this is not a bag of rewards that is divied up according to our righteousness. These are all attributes of the same person. One cannot be poor in spirit, without having an ability to mourn, without being meek, nor without posessing a hunger and thirst for righteousness.
In our 15 minute Sunday School lesson understanding of Scripture, we have segmented Messiah’s blessings so that the beatitudes are distinguished from His declaration that "except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," which He will say in only 12 verses. The beatitudes are never associated with Messiah’s injunction, "Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect," which is how He ends this chapter of the teaching. These things are related. And while they are presented to us over and over from a different vantage point, they are all boiled down to pureness of heart: for without that, you can’t see God.
It’s difficult for us when we know from the beginning that we are doomed for failure. In Jeremiah, Adonai declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reigns, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." The nation of Israel, when Adonai laid out the simple conditions of their relationship, demanding that they not follow after other gods, they resigned themselves with the words, "there is no hope." (Jeremiah 18:12).
Yet, as we begin to understand this relationship with our God through Messiah Yeshua, these qualifications of righteousness are not what He finds in us; but what He builds in us as we learn to walk with Him; but pureness of heart is different from all the others in this way: it is not identifying what is present in our lives; but what is absent.
The idea of pure in both Greek and Hebrew is the idea of cleanness, emptiness, transparency. In Proverbs the word is used, "where there is no ox, the crib is clean" but this is not suggesting that the stall is filled with beautiful things. It is describing what is absent. In the same way, the clean heart is one that has been hosed down and swept out.
We often get frustrated trying to fill our lives with important things that make us feel closer to our heavenly Father. Particularly in our American society where stuff is so readily available for any motif: we try and fill what we acknowledge as a hollowness and void of righteousness with righteous things; not realizing that all we have to do is clean it out, little by little, and He will implant His righteousness into us (and His method is usually much cheaper and less cluttered).
The "desperately wicked" heart that Adonai describes through the prophet Jeremiah is not the fellow who is continually devising evil things. The word a-nash speaks more of the feeble and frail: the one whose clutter and dust and poor cleaning habits has made him chronically sick.
David declares that the condition of the one who may ascend to the holy mountain of Adobai is the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, empty of vain or useless things, not puffed up with self-help (Psalm 24:3-4). His clear message to us is that by filling our hearts with stuff that we think is good is not the answer. As Isaiah declares, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6).
In our assertion to grow in our spiritual walk with Adonai, it is not enough to fill our lives with the things that we feel will please Him and draw us closer to Him. It is equally important to clean out the things that smell bad. The offerings of righteousness that are covered in selfish motives and personal gratification are of no value to Him. You won’t be let in the door. The pure in heart will see God, even if they have little more to offer than an empty crib. So, what’s not there in our lives is just as important to our Lord as what we put in there.
By the time we get to His declaration concerning the state of our hearts, we begin to understand that this is not a bag of rewards that is divied up according to our righteousness. These are all attributes of the same person. One cannot be poor in spirit, without having an ability to mourn, without being meek, nor without posessing a hunger and thirst for righteousness.
In our 15 minute Sunday School lesson understanding of Scripture, we have segmented Messiah’s blessings so that the beatitudes are distinguished from His declaration that "except your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven," which He will say in only 12 verses. The beatitudes are never associated with Messiah’s injunction, "Be perfect, therefore, as your Father in heaven is perfect," which is how He ends this chapter of the teaching. These things are related. And while they are presented to us over and over from a different vantage point, they are all boiled down to pureness of heart: for without that, you can’t see God.
It’s difficult for us when we know from the beginning that we are doomed for failure. In Jeremiah, Adonai declares, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I try the reigns, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings." The nation of Israel, when Adonai laid out the simple conditions of their relationship, demanding that they not follow after other gods, they resigned themselves with the words, "there is no hope." (Jeremiah 18:12).
Yet, as we begin to understand this relationship with our God through Messiah Yeshua, these qualifications of righteousness are not what He finds in us; but what He builds in us as we learn to walk with Him; but pureness of heart is different from all the others in this way: it is not identifying what is present in our lives; but what is absent.
The idea of pure in both Greek and Hebrew is the idea of cleanness, emptiness, transparency. In Proverbs the word is used, "where there is no ox, the crib is clean" but this is not suggesting that the stall is filled with beautiful things. It is describing what is absent. In the same way, the clean heart is one that has been hosed down and swept out.
We often get frustrated trying to fill our lives with important things that make us feel closer to our heavenly Father. Particularly in our American society where stuff is so readily available for any motif: we try and fill what we acknowledge as a hollowness and void of righteousness with righteous things; not realizing that all we have to do is clean it out, little by little, and He will implant His righteousness into us (and His method is usually much cheaper and less cluttered).
The "desperately wicked" heart that Adonai describes through the prophet Jeremiah is not the fellow who is continually devising evil things. The word a-nash speaks more of the feeble and frail: the one whose clutter and dust and poor cleaning habits has made him chronically sick.
David declares that the condition of the one who may ascend to the holy mountain of Adobai is the one who has clean hands and a pure heart, empty of vain or useless things, not puffed up with self-help (Psalm 24:3-4). His clear message to us is that by filling our hearts with stuff that we think is good is not the answer. As Isaiah declares, all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6).
In our assertion to grow in our spiritual walk with Adonai, it is not enough to fill our lives with the things that we feel will please Him and draw us closer to Him. It is equally important to clean out the things that smell bad. The offerings of righteousness that are covered in selfish motives and personal gratification are of no value to Him. You won’t be let in the door. The pure in heart will see God, even if they have little more to offer than an empty crib. So, what’s not there in our lives is just as important to our Lord as what we put in there.
