Poor in Spirit
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; Mt 5:3
I know your works, and tribulation, and poverty Rev 2:9
Many of us human beings start from the assumption that poverty is a demerit, but this is nothing more than an earthly observation; see this matter:
"Meritocracy" is a differentiating status between poor and middle class
By Arthur Taguti.
1) Our society has always had two very strong social classes: the "owners" (donatary, sugar mill lord) and the marginalized common people. As one class holds absolute power and the other feels the power of the whip, the middle class arose basically to function as a "support team" to the higher classes, becoming lawyers, doctors, accountants, engineers, and so on.
2) By not holding the means of production (as the elite does), it is closer to the poor than to the rich. It is very easy tomorrow for me to be in penury, but almost impossible one day to be at a gala dinner of Fiesp or Febraban as a banker or industrialist.
Thus, "meritocracy" becomes a differentiating status between poor and middle class, and the latter becomes essentially conservative, defender of the well-off, because it was granted "privileges", "benefits".
However, within the heavenly scope our LORD uses this noun poverty of spirit to encourage us to great deeds never imagined by natural man, but to reach this stage man needs to divest himself of all things linked to natural life that serve as hindrance. Heb 12:1,2.
"Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every hindrance, and the sin that so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
Looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."
Since we have such a proposal if we pay attention with diligence to these things, we can indeed make "poverty" (devoid of goods) a requirement of the soul that elevates us to unsearchable riches beyond our mediocre lives of this nature (Rev 2:9)
We see Jesus exalt the poor in spirit in the sermon on the mount as the main source of his first sermon to the multitude, this gives us wonderful ideas of what the man poor in spirit can receive, in earthly life it has a bitter taste to depend one hundred percent on others, but in the heavenly life of the kingdom of God it is the main virtue for the one who depends one hundred percent on God Psalm 23.
When the writer of Hebrews in chapter 12 makes reference to the cloud of witnesses of chapter 11, we can imagine how poor in spirit these witnesses were, and he even said that he would not have time or space to detail the deeds of God in the lives of those heroes of faith.
However, today we live in difficult times to be poor in spirit in a depraved and selfish world without love, where discord is the order of the day, but as Pastor Adail says "we must unlearn to learn again", because only then can we rewrite our history in the cenacle of the Apostles of JESUS CHRIST.
May God bless you
See you soon
Jesus is Faithful
Pastor José Ramos