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!
Which “Cup” do you think the Beatitudes are about?
I'm sure
thinking
THIS ONE!
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