In Matthew 5:3-11, Jesus gave a series of statements that we refer to as the beatitudes. Each statement describes a type of person that God says is blessed. “Beatitude” means “blessed.” Each one of these statements cuts across the grain of modern expectations.
The first group of people that Jesus describes as blessed are the poor in spirit. To be poor in spirit describes your attitude toward yourself. People today work very hard to present themselves in the best possible light. People are drowning in debt, trying to keep up with the illusion of prosperity that people around them are projecting. The propaganda of our society drowns us in the mantras that we just need to believe in ourselves and everything will work out. We need to just follow our own hearts. We celebrate self-assurance and self-confidence. In Scripture, we find that when a person encounters God, the opposite happens. At the burning bush, Moses was struck with his own inadequacy. When Isaiah saw the Lord in Isaiah 6:5, he cried out, “woe is me, for I am undone!” When Jesus came to Peter after the resurrection, Peter said, “depart from me, for I am a sinful man.” (Luke 5:8) Paul said that he had come to the place where he realized that those things that he thought were his accolades and accomplishments were actually detrimental to his walk with Christ (Philippians 3:4-9). He told the Corinthian church that he was willing to be a fool for Christ’s sake (1 Corinthians 4:10).
The word for “poor” has the idea of being absolutely broke. The application for us today is not “be poor in spirit,” but to recognize our spiritual poverty. We need to embrace our brokenness. Jesus said that He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Before a person will ever bow the knee in repentance and faith to Jesus Christ, that person must first of all recognize their own spiritual poverty, absolute spiritual brokenness.
In Luke 7, Jesus went to the home of Simon, the Pharisee. Customarily, a guest would be greeted with a kiss, someone to wash the feet, and someone to anoint the head with oil. Simon figured just being invited to his house was a great enough honor, and so he refused these pleasantries. As they were eating, a woman with a horrible reputation rushed into the room and grabbed Jesus by the feet, anointed his feet with ointment, her tears of broken repentance dropping onto His feet, and wiped His feet with her hair. But as this beautiful scene was unfolding, the Pharisees were aghast, sneering that if He knew what kind of woman this was, He would not allow her to come near Him. They had it all backwards.
Who are you? Are you beautifully broken? Broken to be saved, and then perpetually broken, poor in spirit to live the Christian life.
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