Gave Us The Beatitudes
The Beatitudes is the Magna Charta of Christianity. These were the Ordination Discourse of the twelve Disciples in the preface of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:1-16). He taught them the righteousness of the Kingdom and its character which should be taught learned and lived. Jesus taught that all called for a choice; blessings and cursing.
The Beatitudes define the conditions of citizenship in the Kingdom of God and specifies the requirement of the ideal life. In them Jesus is describing the kind of people needed for
His kind of world. He tells them that the spiritual life demands a spiritual man and woman.
He taught that to be a Christian means breathing a new atmosphere; and that though the Divine image on them
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The first four are subjective while the last four is objective. They are not easy to understand, yet they really furnish the key to the Kingdom of Heaven.
1. Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of
Heaven.
Jesus is saying blessed are they who are without worldly ambition and who feel themselves spiritually bankrupt. He is not though teaching that poverty in itself is a blessing but poverty in the spirit in the sense of humility is a help rather than a hindrance of citizenship in his Kingdom.
Jesus knew very well man's tendency to pride; pride of knowledge, pride of achievement, pride of character, pride of virtue, and all the rest of things man takes pride in. So he begins with a beatitude which is of primary and fundamental importance to the Kingdom. He proclaimed blessed are those who have succeeded in slaying pride.
Pride is one of the seven things God hates (Prov. 6:16-19); pride being the first one, a proud look. The guilty of pride being was to be relegated to the lowest region of purgatory (state or place of temporary punishment). The blessedness of the poor in spirit is the blessedness of touching rock bottom. There is a peace in just letting go; for only then are we willing to fall in the arms of God's