3"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.
4"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.
5"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are—no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.
6"You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink in the best meal you'll ever eat.
7"You're blessed when you care. At the moment of being 'care-full,' you find yourselves cared for.
8"You're blessed when you get your inside world—your mind and heart—put right. Then you can see God in the outside world.
9"You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are, and your place in God's family.
10"You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom.
11-12"Not only that—count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. You can be glad when that happens—give a cheer, even!—for though they don't like it, I do! And all heaven applauds. And know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten into this kind of trouble.
There are a few things that really stood out to me in this passage so iam gonna share a few short thoughts
The first thing that stood out to me was that these people had to climb a mountain to hear this teaching!
I think that sometimes for us to get real revelation we have to climb. it may not be easy but we still have to do it
The second thing that really stood out to me in this text is the things that Jesus said were a blessing are often the things we don't like stuff like reading our bibles, loosing a loved one, being "persecuted",
I think that often times we don't fully thank god for our revelation not matter if it made us feel good or not!
Often times I think we won't a self help lesson from the bible on positivive thinking but thats not what God wants to show us in his word.
Let's truly listen and apply everything we hear from god this year.
lets do hard stuff this year like GIVE, LOVE, RESPECT, PRAY, READ GOD'S WORD!!
Let's let God's word challenge us to GROW, and GO this year!!
Learning to LOVE
Living under HIS waterfalls
Ben,
that was a great post, i enjoyed reading it.