Poverty Doesn’t Mean Sadness by David Jeremiah

Monday, November 6 Poverty Doesn’t Mean Sadness    Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:3    The twentieth-century American journalist and cultural critic, H. L. Mencken, is responsible for this (erroneous) quote: “Puritanism [is] the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” In other words, Christians are people who resent those who are happy. Why does this opinion persist?

Recommended Reading: Matthew 25:34

Possibly because of verses like Matthew 5:3: “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” “Poor in spirit” sounds like someone who is sad or bereft. But it is not that at all. Being “poor in spirit” simply means someone who has humbly recognized the limits of his own abilities. As the New Living Translation affirms, “God blesses those who are poor and realize their need for him.” That is not sadness; it is realism. It is a clear understanding, probably realized over and over in life, that the kingdom of man is insufficient for human happiness. But the kingdom of God is all-sufficient! How happy will be the person who exchanges his worldly “happiness” for dependence on God. The blessings of the kingdom of heaven will be his or hers.    Be poor in your human spirit today, but rich in the Spirit of God. Exchange your lack for God’s abundance. Rejoice in the kingdom of heaven!    If we will do God’s work in God’s way at God’s time with God’s power, we shall have God’s blessing.  Leonard Ravenhill in Why Revival Tarries