Epaggelia

Key Text: Matthew 5:1-12 

Blessedness is a constant fact of daily life, not a consistent feeling every day. When Jesus was teaching to help people enter into being blessed, he was telling them how to obtain the position or location so that we can view happiness while we are in it. Happiness or blessedness is many different things to different people, but Jesus wants us to know that God has only one definition for joy, and it is the best.  John says that there is no greater joy, than to see your children walk in the truth (3Jn 4). Whether they are spiritual or physical children doesn’t matter. The greatest joy is to see your faith influencing someone else in the truth! When you experience that, you are beginning to get a taste of eternal joy in heaven on earth. 

Jesus uses eight different ways to help us focus on the fact of happiness, so that we can experience being blessed.

“Poor In Spirit”, being able to admit that we are individually spiritually bankrupt and destitute, and have nothing to offer God in and of our self. We are prideful, conceited, self-centered sinners, and when we humbly submit to God for a change, we are being ‘poor in spirit’. This leads to blessedness and should be a constant fact we are focused on! See James 4:7-10.

“Mourning”, being sincerely and sadly sorrowful for our sins and trespasses, to the point of expressing repentance in prayer, and where appropriate, even fasting in a way that confesses our sin This is spiritual mourning which leads to a blessedness in knowing your forgiven, loved and fully accepted by God. See 2nd Corinthians 7:10.

“Meekness”, being able to bring your human willpower under the control of God’s willpower. Christians who are able to submit what spiritual talents we have at our disposal to God’s service and not our own, will be blessed in enjoying physical things from God. See 1st Timothy 6:17.

“Desiring Righteousness”, being able to quench our spiritual thirst with God’s spiritual strength and fill our spiritual appetite for God’s truthful word, practiced in our daily life, is indeed a blessing. Psalm 34:8 & Romans 1:17

“Mercy”, being able to refrain from condemning or criticizing others, so that in return, God will not condemn our selves. This is truly helping our happiness when we realize we are not receiving the wrath of God our sins deserve. Colossians 3:12-13.

“Purity”, being able to see things from God’s perspective, is a clean view. Our happiness is dependent upon how and what our heart searches for. When our heart’s motive is absent of self, we can be pure in our intent. Our problem is that the human heart is inherently deceptive and incapable of maintaining purity all by our self, we need a constant diet of God’s word, love and wisdom, in order to be pure in heart, then we can see the world and our self as God sees. This is enjoyable! Acts 15:8-9 & 2nd Cor. 7:1 & 1st Peter 1:22.

“Making Peace”, being able to help someone else to befriend God is the heart of evangelism. The beginning of peace is the establishment of a rapport between enemies. Therefore a Christian tries to mediate between God and alien sinners, this is when we prove we are His children, because that was thrust of Christ’s ministry, to seek and save the lost. When we accept and fully realize that Jesus is our peace, he brings inner rejoicing in the friendship with God, Ephesians 2:14 & Galatians 6:1-5.

“Steadfast Suffering for Our Savior”, being able to prove to yourself that you are a genuine disciple is a big blessing, even when your proof is painful. James 1:2-4 & 1st Peter 4:12-18.