The Beatitudes Shows the Sequence of God’s Divine Plan for Our Lives
According to the Gospel of Matthew, the first thing Jesus taught was, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matt. 4:17). The next thing He taught was the Beatitudes. This connection is not coincidental; the Beatitudes represent the attitudes of those who possess the kingdom of heaven. They are not commands; they represent the spiritual dimensions that one should expect to experience as heaven unfolds in their life.
Each beatitude represents a spiritual attainment and is identified by a particular grace and unique blessedness. They are not attainments reached from human initiative or perspective. Rather, they represent divine accomplishments. These are the inner works of God, established by the Holy Spirit in the heart of the Christ follower. And yes, the believer must apply himself and cooperate with the working of grace, but this is the work of God, not man.
The believer should know that the goal of heaven is not only to provide for us but also to perfect us.
To be blessed is to be shaped inwardly by God. Just as His hands shaped Adam, He reworks the soul of each of His followers, redesigning our thoughts and imaginations and reconfiguring our attitudes until the day we are transformed into His image. We see that to be blessed is not merely to enjoy an increase in financial or material goods; it is to become a living habitation for the Most High.
Indeed, within the heart that God designs, God abides.
The Beatitudes represent interconnected realities, divinely sequenced so that the truth of one becomes the substructure for the truth that follows. In other words, the merciful would not know the fullness of God’s mercy had they not understood true meekness, which is the result of seeing their poverty of spirit and subsequent mourning for their sin. Nor would there ever be genuine purity of heart without first becoming merciful and hungering and thirsting for righteousness.
Seeing the Beatitudes expressed as a whole rather than unrelated individual pieces reveals a profound benefit to us. Indeed, when these coalesce—as they become the Beatitudes—they create a symphony of divine truth. Not only are they listed together; they fit together.
When Paul writes that “God causes all things to work together for good” (Rom. 8:28), we think his address refers to the effect of God’s wisdom and power on a believer’s life, and such it is. Yet we also see another parallel truth in this verse, less sublime or quoted than the first but just as true: the creative action of God causes all things to work together.
Whenever God is seen, either in creation or in human life, all things work together. Within the Godhead the three work together; within the church the body works together; and here in the Beatitudes we see the working together, the connectedness and harmony of the Beatitudes.
Consider the reward of living in the first beatitude: “Theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He does not promise something limited to eternity; He says, “Theirs is the kingdom.” It is both now and in eternity. The last beatitude concludes with the same promise. A present manifestation of heaven on earth comes as God’s life unfolds in the lives of His disciples. Each beatitude creates a spiritual reality that, once accepted and established, becomes the entrance into the following beatitude.
How does God purpose to transform us? He begins our inner change by focusing us on our attitudes. If we change our attitudes, we change our perception; our actions and, ultimately, our future all transform according to the attitudes of our hearts. Yet Christ isn’t seeking merely to give us different attitudes; He seeks to work in us heaven’s attitudes.
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