Matthew 5:1-2
Now when Jesus saw the crowds,
he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
he went up on a mountainside and sat down.
His disciples came to him, and he began to teach them.
Let us look at Jesus’ greatest training program: the Beatitudes.
Each of the eight Beatitudes has a two-fold nature: a “knowing” and a “doing” response. We must not only know them, we must also respond to what we learn from them.
Eight times in the Beatitudes it says, “Blessed are….” These refer to Jesus’ evaluation of the kind of person He names in each Beatitude. Jesus was referring to His esteem for that kind of person. His meaning is, “I esteem highly any person who….” He was urging us to have that kind of attitude. His deeper meaning is, “All you who hear Me, choose to become like these kinds of people.”
The Beatitudes is “God’s radical reconstruction of the heart!”
The first four Beatitudes focus internally: they speak to the heart of the one who wants to obey God. They are the four stepping stones to becoming an obedient servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. They are: humility, mourning, meekness and hunger for righteousness.
The second four Beatitudes focus on the external behavior of the servant who follows Jesus. They are: mercy, purity, peacemaking and persecution.
We will look at each of the eight Beatitudes individually.
Let us study Jesus’ Beatitudes so that we live the way Jesus lived.
May we receive great encouragement
as we seek to know and live the Beatitudes in our lives.
May we receive great encouragement
as we seek to know and live the Beatitudes in our lives.
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