Day 19 - Inheriting Heaven and Earth

"and he began to teach them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven…..Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth." Matthew 5:2,3,5.

These words of the Lord's are seed sown by the sower. They should fall Into the ploughed furrow of your heart so that they can grow. Meditation and prayer must water them, and your obedience must keep them in the sunlight. Then they will bear fruit for the Lord's harvest.

His disciples would have partially understood them; but as they kept pondering on them, their meaning would have kept growing, as we can see in the writings of the apostles. It follows that we ought to understand these things so much better than they as we have had nearly two thousand years' more experience of the continual coming of the kingdom: it is not yet come; it has been here all the time, and is now drawing slowly nearer.

So what was in this 'good news' to make the poor blessed? Why do we understand his arrival to be the coming of the kingdom?

The only really good news for mankind is the offering of up-building love. No one can be built up this way who does not want to rise up: if God should try to raise up his little ones without their willing consent, they would drop away from his thwarted attempt. He carries us until we are able to walk; he carries us when we are tired of walking; but he cannot carry us if we will not walk.

Always beware of bad news founded on the pagan notion that suffering results from sin, and the vile declaration that the suffering of an innocent man is a pay-back to the Father for the evil doings of others of his children. These ideas are as monstrous as any Chinese dragon.

Such a so-called gospel is no gospel. It is evil news, enslaving, deeply worrying and rife.

The good news of Jesus looks complicated sometimes, but it was only the news of the thoughts and ways of the Father as he sits among his family. The world may have its own ways that have some value, but how many of us who look for the world to come, look to the skills and powers of this world to deliver us from its evils, as if God was only the God of that world to come!

So stay poor in spirit and meek in heart - then the only way is upwards in him and in that movement is blessing.