Poor in Spirit
In the past few months, I've really been concentrating on the first
beatitude - being 'poor in spirit.' Man - it's becoming more of a
problem to me as time goes on! I don't think it was coincidence that
placed it at the beginning of Jesus' group of "blessed are's.' Until we
finally empty ourselves OF ourselves - God has no room to move in and
begin working with the other qualities he molds into us to make us more
closely his.
If we have allow pride to control any area
of our lives - we are incapable of the most important, most basic,
most obvious fruit of a Christian's life - love.
Just like all God's truths - there's a lot more to this than meets the
eye, and one could spend a lifetime trying to grasp it.
It also has led me to realize how much of our 'religious' life is NOT in
accordance with this "poor" principle. I believe the entire system of
natural world, religious world, and even our concepts of our
God-relationship is completely opposite from 'poor in spirit.'
First of all - the word Jesus used to represent 'poor' meant beggerly
poor - devoid of anything - completely needy. Somehow, it seems, we
have to get to where our self importance, our self-dependence is ZERO.
It's sorta like if your doctor tells you that you have to cut out salt.
You tell him you don't eat much salt! That won't be any problem at all
- but when you start looking around your diet for where the 'hidden'
salt is you are amazed at all the products you use that contain it! You
find it's going to be a real effort to find it and control it. Well,
I'm seeing that same principle with pride.
Pride drives institutional christianity. Not only is there pride in the
pulpit and other leadership - but there is also pride in the pews.
Pride in "our' church, 'we', 'our preacher', 'we believe this'... on and
on. We are NOT concerned with others in the realm of IC - we are
totally fulfilling OUR needs - satisfying OUR 'obligations.' The concept
of the IC is just not a 'one another' idea - as much as it toots its
horn that it is. Folks involved are not there for others.
Pride drives biblical disputes and doctrinal correctness. Rather than
coming to discussions with an open mind and heart - hungry to hear what
pearls of wisdom someone might share with us - something from their own
very
special relationship with God - we can't wait to 'cut them down to
size,' straighten them out, line them up in a straight line ,
label, argue, pressure, We get involved in disputes to toot our horn
and promote OUR understandings - we aren't involved for others.
.
Pride is a big part of our morality. We can sure pat ourselves on the
back, and say "but for the grace of God" when we look around at all
those other pitiful sinners we live around. WE don't have problems with
all those sins! My - we control ourselves! We aren't on their level!!
Huh? What pride! Oh, yes we are! We have learned a lot of coping
strategies that hide our sin - even from ourselves a lot of times. But
- the only difference in
"those" pitiful sinners .. and "we" pitiful sinners - is Jesus. There is
nothing at all we can boast of as far as being better than they are -
but boy we sure do!
Pride keeps us totally opposite from the ways Jesus lived his life. We
work to keep our white, pure robes clean with the religious folks and make sure we aren't muddied by getting around
the common worldly sinner types - yet.. is that how Jesus was? He was
totally approachable by ALL sinners - the worse, the better! He hung
out with folks *most* cast out from society - he broke ALL the
cleanliness rules - physically and moral, yet at the same time made the
*proper* religious folks nervous and angry enough to spit!
"We" have the 'one true church" "We" have enlightenment, "We", "We"...
ISTM - by really meditating on the totality of the reason we are here -
it is simply to use ourselves totally up in loving everyone *BUT*
ourselves. I don't even think we've taken the first step towards that
end. In fact, I don't even know how! It is a totally NEW way of
living, and where do we start? Can any of us truly say we have "lost
ourselves?" - if not - then how will we ever "find us" - as Jesus says
we will in Him?
Here it is 01/01/01 - and I think those of us who are truly TRYING to
follow Jesus - rather than following a church plan, or a man plan - need
to spend time on our knees - or better - on our faces - and repent of
being so filled with US.. ask Him to show up in large neon lights the
areas of our life that we aren't even aware that we have placed
ourselves before 'the lowest of these'.... which of course places
*ourselves* before even God... and make 180 deg. turnarounds in every
area
of our lives... let's help each other do that... roll up our sleeves...
use our talents, our money, our time, our concern... our*selves* for
others. NOTHING else matters.