Christ says: Blessed are those who lack, for they shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. Not those who do much, or have much, but those who lack inherit it. Why? Because those who have less to rely on come to the end of themselves sooner so they can rely on God's grace.
As I continue my study of the Sermon on the Mount with my children, we're discussing what Jesus means when he refers to the "poor in spirit."
Poor in spirit means humble.
I've written much about humility, both in this blog and in my prayer journal as I seek for the Holy Spirit to work this out in me. Humility is the right position before a holy God. In this position, we acknowledge that we are completely reliant on a holy God who holds all things together. Like the slaves in Egypt, we can't get free on our own. Like a servant who has no authority of their own, we rely on our Master's authority to get the job done. We are clear that unless God rescues us from our circumstances, there is no other coming to rescue us.
That's a key: knowing that God is the only one who can and will rescue us. There's knowing God can rescue us and knowing God will rescue us. There's knowing we're reliant on God (and even feeling a bit resentful that we're in this position of reliance) and there's knowing the provision of God that has come through for you so often that you are utterly convinced that He is Faithful and True. This is faith, holding to the "evidence of things we have not yet seen" (Hebrews 11:1 NLT) and it positions us to receive.
Poor in spirit means us.
Poor in spirit doesn't just mean slave or servant or poor financially, but since we were once all slaves, serving a hard taskmaster, and find ourselves relying entirely too much on self-made provision, these are included. When Psalms 15 asks who can abide in God's temple, it lists out all the things we would have to do and be in order to dwell there. Trust me, we aren't going to make the list on our own. It's a rhetorical question.
It's a lot less rhetorical when the 70 men of Beth Shemesh get killed by God for looking into the Ark of the Covenant after it was returned to them by the Philistines who were desperate to get it out of their own borders. The people of Beth Shemesh ask:
And the people of Beth Shemesh asked, “Who can stand in the presence of the Lord, this holy God? To whom will the ark go up from here?” - I Samuel 6:20-21
The answer is no one. We were never intended to stand before a holy God. The plan was always to rely on the Holy Spirit, whom we received from Christ. (Galatians 4:6)
If we are honest with ourselves and realize the lack in us—the gulf between us-as-we-are and holiness—then we are finally in a position to receive God's grace.
From one of my other posts:
The opposite of grace is lack.
Inadequacy, absence, dearth, loss, poverty, scarcity, shortage, shortfall, shortcoming, deficit, depletion, deprivation, destitution, distress, insufficiency, meagerness, want. #Lack.
This is the position of those who are poor in spirit, those who are humbled by the right understanding of our lack before our holy God. Blessed are the ones who find themselves without anything else to rely on sooner than those who have much to rely on. In recognition of our lack, we can surrender all that we thought we could rely on: money, others, charisma, personality, and ourselves. In surrender, there's no self-reliant spirit left within us. It's all Him.
The only wholehearted response to God revealing Himself in our need is surrender.
We think of surrender as giving up and throwing in the towel—and it is—but in the context of the creation in need of our all-powerful God, surrender is the only good option. Our best strivings come to nothing in comparison with His holiness.
There's no partially saved. There's no partially surrendered. Surrender is the "all-in" choice.
The holy God we serve calls us to surrender our all because he is worthy of it all.
Grace ensures the I Am becomes our All in All.