The Beatitudes: Being Happy, Hungry, and Thirsty
Finding true happiness. Many search for it. Many don’t find it. The good news is that Jesus gave us the spiritual roadmap to happiness in the Beatitudes. The Beatitudes describe spiritual qualities that operate within the Kingdom of Heaven, where we find true happiness. The Kingdom of Heaven is not just a future promise, but it is a promise for today and is found in the hearts of those who submit to the rule of Jesus, His followers. As we follow Jesus’ spiritual roadmap to happiness, we will need to make a few stops. First, we must stop at poor in spirit and then go to mourning over sin. Then we backtrack to meekness, the state Jesus calls the citizens of His Kingdom to visit so that God can use them to accomplish His plans and purposes here on earth. Then we move on to stop number four, where our hunger and thirst can be satisfied. Jesus said in Beatitude number 4, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be satisfied.” Matthew 5:6 But how can we be blessed and satisfied if we are hungry and thirsty? Hunger and Thirst Hunger and thirst are the two physical needs of man that, if not satisfied, will lead to certain death. Jesus was no stranger to hunger. He spent 40 nights in the desert with no food and water and understood the overwhelming desire and craving for that which can physically satisfy and sustain. Jesus wants us to have the same overwhelming desire and craving for God because only God can spiritually satisfy and sustain us. However, instead of hungering and thirsting after God, people hunger and thirst after all the wrong things: money, possessions, power, and pleasure. They passionately pursue these things with the belief that when they gain them, they will be satisfied. But when they finally get everything they thought they wanted, they realize that these things cannot satisfy them and will not sustain them, so they begin their fruitless pursuit of all the wrong things again. Money & Possessions Many of Jesus’ teachings were warnings against the pursuit of money and possessions. He said, “Don’t store up treasures here on earth, where moths eat them and rust destroy them, and thieves break in and steal. Store your treasures in heaven, where moths and rust cannot destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal. Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be. Matthew 6:19-21 He also said, “No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.” (Matthew 6:24). He also said, “Beware! Guard against every kind of greed. Life is not measured by how much you own.” Luke 12:15 And finally, “And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul.” Matthew 16:26 Power Even the disciples hungered and thirsted after wrong things. In Luke 22:24-27, the disciples “began to argue among themselves about who would be the greatest among them.” They desired power. Jesus quickly set them straight about what was important in the Kingdom. He said, “In this world the kings and great men lord it over their people, yet they are called ‘friends of the people.’ But among you it will be different. Those who are the greatest among you should take the lowest rank, and the leader should be like a servant. Who is more important, the one who sits at the table or the one who serves? The one who sits at the table, of course. But not here! For I am among you as one who serves.” Pleasure Jesus in the “Parable of the Farmer Scattering Seed” refers to the pleasures of this life as thorns that can choke out the Word of God, hindering the believer from growing to full maturity and producing fruit. Luke 8:4-15 The disciple John says in 1st John 2:15-16, “Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father but are from this world.” The One Right Thing Instead of hungering and thirsting after all the wrong things and ending up unsatisfied, Jesus calls His followers to hunger and thirst after the one right thing: the righteousness of God. Righteousness in Greek means the state of being in right relationship with God, justified, the act of doing what is in agreement with God’s standards. Jesus invites us to partake of his righteousness by thirsting and hungering after Him. He says that anyone who drinks the water He offers “will never be thirsty again.” That His water “becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” John 4:13-15 He says that He is “the bread of life” and whoever comes to Him “will never be hungry again.” John 6:35 We are made right through Jesus, who never sinned. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says that “God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin so that we would be made right with God through Christ.” This righteousness comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. (Romans 3:21-26) Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross covers our sin so that God sees us as He sees Christ: perfect and unblemished. Once we are justified, the Holy Spirit begins to work in us to make us look more like Christ, and the more we look like Christ, the more we hunger and thirst after the one right thing! Spiritual Diet Do you hunger and thirst after God? Do you want to hunger and thirst after Him more? If you fill yourself up with too much junk
The Bible: Is It the Inspired Word of God?
No Ordinary Book The Bible is not just any ordinary book. Its message has caused people from all generations, all walks of life, and all nationalities to change the direction of their lives radically. Written words on their own do not have this kind of power. However, if the Bible is the inspired word of God, then its words have the weight and power to affect such profound change. In The Bible: Is It Really Accurate and Reliable?, we concluded that the Bible is truth and not fiction – that it is historically reliable and its authors are credible. For those reasons, we can look to the Bible to answer the question: Is the Bible the inspired Word of God? God Breathed The Bible was written by ordinary men with no extraordinary power or authority. The authors did not claim the words they wrote as their own, but rather attributed them to God. Paul, in 2nd Timothy 3:16 says that “All scripture is inspired by God.” Inspired comes from the Greek word theopneustos, which means God-breathed. Over and over again, both the Old and the New Testaments refer to Scripture as the Word of God. Prophecy In the Old Testament, God spoke through prophets like Moses and Jeremiah. God chose these prophets to communicate His message to the world. Jeremiah provides a great example of how prophets were chosen and used by God. Jeremiah 1:5-10 says: “The Lord said to me, ‘Before I formed you in your mother’s womb I chose you…I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations.’ I answered, ‘Oh, Lord God, I really do not know how to speak well enough for that’…The Lord said to me…’But go to whomever I send you and say whatever I tell you…’ Then the Lord reached out his hand and touched my mouth and said to me, ‘I will most assuredly give you the words you are to speak for me. Know for certain that I hereby give you the authority to announce to nations and kingdoms that they will be uprooted and torn down, destroyed and demolished, rebuilt and firmly planted.” The Old Testament is filled with prophecies relating to the rise and fall of nations and kingdoms. Prophecies in the Old Testament were written hundreds, if not thousands, of years before they came to pass. An example of an Old Testament prophecy relating to the fall of a nation is recorded in Ezekiel. Between 587 and 586 B.C. Ezekiel predicted that many nations would come against the city of Tyre and that eventually Nebuchadnezzar would destroy it. In Ezekiel 26:12, Ezekiel predicted that the stone, timber, and rubble of the ancient City of Tyre would be thrown into the sea. “They will plunder your wealth and loot your merchandise; they will break down your walls and demolish your fine houses and throw your stones, timber and rubble into the sea.” This prophecy came to pass when Alexander the Great attacked Tyre in 333-332 B.C. His armies threw the stones, timber and rubble of the City into the sea to make a land bridge. This bridge is still there. There are hundreds more prophecies recorded in the Old Testament that later came to pass. The accuracy of these prophecies is uncanny and the likelihood of them coming to pass is low, unless of course, they were given by God to the prophets supernaturally. In addition to prophets predicting the rise and fall of people and nations, the prophets predicted the coming of Jesus Christ. There are over 300 prophecies concerning Jesus. Some prophecies tell when he would be born, “A period of seventy sets of seven has been decreed for your people and your holy city to finish their rebellion, to put an end to their sin, to atone for their guilt, to bring in everlasting righteousness, to confirm the prophetic vision, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Now listen and understand! Seven sets of seven plus sixty-two sets of seven will pass from the time the command is given to rebuild Jerusalem until a ruler—the Anointed One—comes…” Daniel 9:24-25 his lineage, “When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’” 2nd Samuel 12-16 that he would die and rise again. “I keep my eyes always on the Lord.With him at my right hand, I will not be shaken.Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;my body also will rest secure,because you will not abandon me to the realm of the dead,nor will you let your faithful one see decay. You make known to me the path of life;you will fill me with joy in your presence,with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Psalm 16:8-11 Can One Man Fulfill All These Prophecies? What are the chances that one man would fulfill these prophecies? College students decided to conduct a scientific study to help answer this question. They used only 8 of the prophecies concerning Jesus. Upon completion of the study, they determined that the chance that one man would fulfill just 8 of these prophecies was 1 in 1017. I have trouble imagining that number, so I’m going to use the visualization that Peter Stoner, in his book Science Speaks, used:Imagine that we took 1017 silver dollars and laid them across the entire state of Texas. By the time we got done, they covered all of Texas