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The Beatitudes
and Your Cup - Matt. 5:3-12
from Doug Perry, www.FellowshipOfTheMartyrs.com
- (printable PDF file here)
– 9/5/06
The Lord showed me
very clearly today how Matthew 5 intersects with the understandings
about “cups” and cup management. I hope that I can express
this as clearly as He showed it to me. If you haven't already read
the “Spiritual Tune-up” or “Fill My Cup, Lord”
writings, you probably won't get this at all. (See graphic at bottom
of this writing. Guess which one the Beatitudes are about?)
You need to
understand that the Beatitudes, as with nearly all of the Word of God
have multiple applications on various levels. Like spirals –
repeating parallel cycles but different applications. Seen that
way, the largest possible application is to the spiritual/eternal
– not the natural/temporary.
3 Blessed
are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
First you need to
note that it doesn't say “Spirit,” it says
“spirit”. He's not at all saying that you are blessed if
you are poor in HIS Spirit! You are blessed if there is hardly any
YOU in your cup so that HE can fill all the available space! You are
blessed when you are poured out and there is hardly any of you left
at all. Your's is the kingdom of heaven when there is practically
none of You to get in His way. He can use you mightily when you have
given Him all of your false riches (knowledge, experience,
personality, charisma, degrees, dreams, etc.) and are left with only
the bare minimum (faith like a child). Then He can pour in the
true riches of HIS Spirit.
4 Blessed
are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
What are they
mourning about? The death of a loved one? That hardly seems to fit
here. This is all about eternal and spiritual things, why mourn about
the death of a jar of clay? I think this applies to those who are
mourning for souls, mourning for the sad state of things and
desperate state of the mess we've made of our own hearts, our
families, our churches, our cities, our world. I think this is a
reference to those in Ezekiel 9 that are the ONLY ones spared from
the wrath of God on the lukewarm and asleep. You can see that the
first fruits in Revelation 7, the 144,000 are those who are
comforted. I suspect they are the ones mourning the most. If
you truly see through the eyes of Jesus (because you have hardly any
of You left and a big cup of Jesus), then you will almost surely
mourn for how much God is grieved and hurt by what we're doing (or
not doing).
5 Blessed
are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.Humility is an
unavoidable by-product of having practically none of You left and a
big cup of Jesus. The more we realize the distance between us and God
and how truly big and merciful and holy and just and faithful He is,
the more we must be meek. Those who recognize this and are thrilled
to just have the crumbs under the table or stay outside and serve
quietly will be ones sitting at the head of the table. Said in
reverse, “Cursed are those who are full of pride and self, for
they will be cast into outer darkness.” Meekness/humility is a
clear, internal understanding that pride is the enemy and when it
rises up in us is antichrist.
6 Blessed
are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.Those
who are desperate to keep Sin out of their cup are those who will
have maximum capacity to hold more Jesus. You will be filled to the
degree that you are hungry and thirsty to be filled and seek out how
best to do it. The more you go to the River to drink your fill, the
less room there will be for unrighteousness to fit inside. If you
understand that Jesus is in your cup and that He doesn't like to be
in there with the nasty, icky stuff, you would seek to keep it
cleansed and sanctified at every moment. You cannot displace Sin
effectively by a force of will, you need to be so full of Jesus that
nothing else can fit!
7 Blessed
are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.
This is the action
step that proves that your cup is full of Jesus. You must see that
others may not have as big a cup or may have embedded Sin that needs
to come out and you must lovingly urge them forward as someone that
has been there and not self-righteously as someone who knows it all.
You must even be willing to stand in the gap for them and take on
their burdens if necessary so as to free them. Oppressions that keep
them from fully tasting the goodness of God need to be broken or you
need to help bear their burden. The more you pour yourself out onto
those in need – the more you sacrificially give of all that you
have, even if you don't get it back – the more God will expand
your cup and pour out on you. The more He will grant you mercy when
you mess things up and act prideful and rebellious.
8 Blessed
are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
Those who meet the
qualifications above; who have been poured out, who weep for the sad
state of things, who have crucified pride, who beg for more Jesus,
who regularly pour themselves out and get bigger cups – THOSE
are the people who will see God. Others may have dreams and
visions or angelic visitations, but THESE are the people who really
see God for who He is and have true relationship. These are the ones
that He calls, “Friends.”
9 Blessed
are the peacemakers, for they will be called the sons of God.Above
all these will be like Jesus, because they have the biggest cup of
Jesus. And Jesus was a peacemaker with a sword. Peace is not always
instant. Sometimes you have to speak the truth in love and know that
in the big picture peace will eventually be the result. When Jesus
overturned the tables in the Temple it was so that there would be
peace there – but it would require 2000+ years for it to
materialize. We must always seek His peace, and His ways are not our
ways. Sometimes peace doesn't mean being polite and pretending we all
agree. Said differently, we are to be at peace with the spirit of our
brother, but war against his evil deeds and his rulers. (Psalm 141:5-6)
10 Blessed
are those who are presecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven.This is an unavoidable by-product of
having a big cup of Jesus and being a peacemaker. See John 15 and I
John – and the whole history of the Church, for that matter. The
more you are filled with Jesus, the more you will be persecuted. The
spirits of this world fear Him intensely and will do everything they
can directly or through other people to kill, smother or marginalize
the Light in you. If you have a little candle, a couple of bugs
might come to see what's going on. If you are the halogen array on
top of a football stadium, every bug for MILES is going to come and
try to smother you. The bigger your cup, the less of You there is,
the more the warfare will increase. Guaranteed.
11 Blessed
are you when people insult you, presecute you and falsely say all
kinds of evil against you because of me. Jesus knows what He
went through and how hard it was. He sympathizes and He protects
those who endure such things. And you get maximum treasure in heaven
for enduring the hardest things for His name! You will be more
and more blessed by God the more you are insulted, reviled,
assaulted, persecuted, libeled, beaten, burned, boiled, whipped,
imprisoned, starved or killed.
12 Rejoice
and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same
way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.The
Apostle Paul had a great big cup of Jesus and saw a constant stream
of miracles around him. He had a LOT of treasure in heaven. To
some degree you have to also see that presecution comes so as to
further refine us and beat out of us the really deeply entrenched
yellow stuff – the You in your cup that really, really doesn't
want to budge! Any pride or self-reliance has to be laid down when
you have no strength and no one to lean on but God. Through firey
trials He teachs us to be totally and utterly dependent on Him.
When you suffer
for the Name of Jesus, you join a great long list of mighty men and
women of God who have gone before you. Whether you are physically
killed or not, when you ask God to kill all of You that stands in His
way, you become a martyr. When He pours You out so that He can pour
Himself in, you are truly dead and it's Christ in you that lives. The
more you hold back, the less dead you are and the less He can fill
you. Rejoice in affliction!! There is no other way to get some of the
really stubborn You out! Every time you endure persecution in
faith, another ugly chunk of You dies and He can fill the gap with
His grace and mercy and peace and gifts of the Spirit. The
“Fellowship of the Martyrs” is just the spiritual assembly
of those who have died to self and it's Christ in them that lives.
Jesus Himself said that sooner or later, people like that will
probably also die physically for their faith, but who cares? We're
already dead!
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Which
“Cup” do you think the Beatitudes are about? |
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I'm sure
thinking
THIS ONE!
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