A Beautiful Portrait of Christ

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.

Blessed are the merciful, for they shall receive mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God.

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The Beatitudes. The beautiful opening to the Sermon on the Mount depicting the character of those who are a citizen of the kingdom of heaven. The kingdom citizens are people who are the blessed ones. They are the ones who are poor in spirit who having recognized their poverty, bankrupt of any righteousness of their own, they turn to God for salvation. They are people who are characterized to a deep sensitivity to sin and it grieve over their own sin and the consequences of sin in our world. They are people who are meek, aware of their standing before God as sinners in need of grace, which brings about a spirit of humility and gentleness in their dealings with others. They are not people who grab for their rights but rather submit their circumstances to their Heavenly Father trusting that He is at work in the good and the bad. They are people who have been given new passions, new desires. They hunger and thirst for righteousness. For the righteousness that Christ has given to them, for all that He says in His Word. They are merciful people, hearts full of compassion that is moved to action to relieve the suffering of those around them. They are pure in heart, undivided in their loyalty to Jesus Christ, with no hypocrisy. They walk the walk AND talk the talk. They are peacemakers, heading into conflict seeking to turn enemies into friends, beginning with people's relationship with God their creator and moving to one another. And finally these citizens of the kingdom of heaven are the persecuted ones. They are persecuted not because of their own obnoxious behavior, but they are persecuted for righteousness sake. They are persecuted because of their character and their loyalty to Christ and His Word.

All that I stated above is true. When we read these verses, we learn what a genuine Christian looks like! We are able to evaluate our lives and recognize over and over again how far we fall short of this and throw ourselves on the grace of God in repentance.

But if all we see as we read these verses is ourselves, we are missing the true treasure that is there waiting to be discovered. For if we dig just a little bit beneath the surface, we will uncover a breathtaking glimpse of Jesus Himself, for the Beatitudes are just that - a beautiful portrait of Christ!

1.        Jesus became poor. He left the riches of heaven, and entered into our world as a tiny, vulnerable baby completely dependent on others. The One who holds the universe together by the very word of His power, entered into our universe needy, dependent, empty. The God-Man, as He walked on this earth, relied completely on His Heavenly Father to meet all of His needs. 

2.        Jesus was a man of sorrows and well acquainted with grief. We see Him weep at the graveside of his friend, Lazarus. We see Him sorrow in the Garden of Gethsemane under the weight of not His own sin because He was perfectly sinless, but under the weight of our sins.

3.        We see Jesus, meek and gentle and walking in self-control. All truth and all grace in every circumstance He encountered.  Nor did He consider equality with God something to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking on the very nature of a servant.  And being found in human form, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 

4.        His hunger for righteousness cannot be separated from His personhood. It wasn't something He did, it was who He was.  He was zealous for His Father and His Father’s will.  “My food is to do my Father’s will,” He said. He pursued righteousness, obeying all that the Father told Him. When tempted in the wilderness to pursue satisfying His hunger outside the will of God, He responded: "Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."  He perfectly fulfilled the law, not breaking anything. He walked in righteousness because He was righteous to His very core.

5.        Jesus is mercy personified. His mercies are new every day. He is the True Good Samaritan who journeyed from heaven to earth, to a creation that has been stripped and beaten and not just left half dead, but left spiritually dead. He came because He saw our plight. He had compassion on us and was moved to action. He came to us. He breathes into our nostrils the breath of life. He cleans out the sin in our wounds with wine, he pours the healing ointment on our souls. He continues to heal us through the power of His Word.

6.        Jesus has the purest of hearts. Never once did He waver in His loyalty to His Father. He was completely faithful. When tempted in the wilderness by Satan to worship another for all the kingdoms of this world and for their glory, His heart remained pure and undivided. “You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve,” He replied. Undivided loyalty. Undivided heart. There was no dishonesty in Him. There was no hypocrisy. He was without sin. He was pure of heart.

7.        He is the perfect peacemaker. He, the SON of GOD, by His blood made peace with the enemies of His Father. Not only has He made peace with us, but through Him we are brought into the family. We are the sons and daughters of God. We sit at the table of God as family because of Him.

8.        And for all this He was persecuted…he was reviled. And finally He was crucified.

And it is because of HIM that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. (2 Corinthians 1:30)

What this verse is saying is that everything we have we have because of Him.

•   He became poor – so we could become rich and inherit a kingdom.
•   He was a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief so that we could be comforted with forgiveness.
•   His humility lifted us up to inherit the earth.
•  His perfect righteousness has become our righteousness.
•   His mercy brought us healing.
•   His peacemaking brought us into the family of God.
•   He suffering, death and resurrection brought us life.
•   He was cursed so that we could be blessed!

I don’t know about you, but this takes my breath away. This stirs my heart with love and loyalty for Jesus my King!

It is because of Jesus and it is through Jesus that we have entrance into the kingdom of heaven. And it is because of Jesus and through Jesus that we have entrance into the presence of God!  We inherit every spiritual blessing because of Jesus!

And we all, who with unveiled faces – contemplate the Lord’s glory...are being transformed into HIS image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit. (2 Corinthians 3:18)

At the beginning of the post, we acknowledged that the beatitudes reveal to us the true character of Christians. We also recognize that we fall short of that character! But what we have come to understand through contemplation of Christ in the beatitudes that to be a genuine Christians, to have this kind of character, we are to simply reflecting the character of their King - Jesus Christ.

And how do we do that?? Reflect Christ?

We become what we behold! We behold what we love.

When we read the beatitudes, we see Jesus first because our hearts are hungering for a glimpse of Him!  And as we behold Him (contemplate His glory), the Word of God says that we are being made into the image of Christ. Through the work of the Holy Spirit and the power of the Word God, we are being changed, little by little, to be a people who look more and more like Jesus, to be a people who reflect that character found in the beatitudes!

We become what we behold! We behold what we love. What are you beholding?