Sermon on the mount series:Blessed are the poor in spirit

Matthew 5:1-3 "And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him: And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying, Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Who is this one that have ascended up this mountains and sits in the midst of this multitude of humanity?

Christ had been preaching repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand, now he will teach who will receive it. The first part of this sermon contains the law of the kingdom of heaven. The first beatitude is the sum and substance of the whole sermon. The world understanding of blessedness/happiness is short sighted and unwise, they call people happy when things go well with them, when they are cheerful, good- natured, loved by family and friends. Blessedness is a much deeper word than "happiness." The New Testament rescues the word from the world's misunderstood application and fills it with a higher and holy meaning. The world is wrong. Good futune is not blessedness; blessedness is the gift of God; which can not be taken away by chance or change. So foreign is this blessedness to the world. Why? Because it had never been seen before, for its origin is from above. The Lord Jesus was the only example and teacher of it, he tell us to learn of him, "for I am meek and lowly of heart"(Matthew 11: 29). Christ is the arch type of the citizen of heaven, it is through him and only him that we can learn how to enter into that kingdom. Poor in spirit, empty oneself, esteeming other better than oneself.

This Christ exemplified, the only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, ........ Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; For verily he took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the seed of Abraham. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted ( see 1Timothy 6: 15, Philippians 2: 5-8, Hebews 2: 9-18,).

Christ's Exemlifies being poor in spirit.

1) The only Potentate, the King of kings, and Lord of lords, become a servant.

2) Being in the form of God, made himself of no reputation.

3) Dinvity, made flesh.

4) Did not took on the nature of angels, he took on him the seed of Abraham.

5) Th holy one, allowed himself to suffer being tempted.

　

For ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich (2Corinthians 8: 9).

Christ did not just teach it, he lived it, and he did is as a man not as a God, leaving us an example that we should walk as he walked.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: (Philippians 2:5).

Will you let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: and will you follow his example?

I Have Enough

America is said, "To be the land of opportunity" known the world over for the Americian Dream and this spirit is characteristic of its people. It's a country where being born without privilege, money or station in life, can be overcome, and that is why so many have come from all over the earth, to become part of what has made America great. It seems that America has been romanticized as a land of opportunity since the 16th century and from its founding in 1776, the United States has regarded and promoted itself as an empire of liberty and prosperity. The idea of the American Dream is rooted in the United States Declaration of Independence which proclaims that "all men are created equal" and that they are "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights," which include "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. Though we live in a land of plenty, yet it is very seldom that we hear anyone say "I have enough."


The first business of the Christian is to "seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteouness,but to often we strive for "gold that perisheth," which becomes a fierce hardship for our wife and children, leaving them feeling a distant second to worldly pursuits. Family members have grown into adulthood in strife,conflict and rivalry between other family members. This is a very commonly known fact, Hollywood has made many different comical movies depicting a father's obession with work to the detriment of his family. Showing the truth of the quote, "Everything is funny as long as it is happening to someone else."

"....men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows" (1 Tim. 6: 5-10).

A family enjoyed raising some laying hens, they brought a straight run of chicks, which means they got a mixture of hens and roosters. One day they decided` it was time to put the rooster to a better use than just consuming more food. So they went into the fenced in yard and started to corner and capture the roosters, putting them into cages. One of the cornered rooster felt he was not going to have anyting to do with this, so he jumped straight up and flew out over the 4 foot high fence. Let me stop here in this story to consider a few things. Without a doubt, any of the chichen could have done what this roosted did, but they all remained inside the fenced in area, Why? The chickens remained in the pen because they found satisfaction/contentment there. "Having food and raiment there were content," and they found "contentment great gain." The fenced in area served the chickens in three ways:

1) It kept them in an acceptable area.

2) It protected them from predators.

3) It kept them together.

"But godliness with contentment is great gain" (1 Tim. 6:6)). A contented mind is one of the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this life. Contentment is good for the soul, for it stops murmuring, reflecting, and ingratitude toward God and our fellowman. It gives us thoughts of peace and love and makes our conversation pleasant.

However, all of these important function rested entirely upon contentment. All of us have lived long enough to know that, "we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. What we fail to comprehend is having food, clothing, and a roof over our head to be therein content. So we jump straight up and flew out over the fenced in area of contentment, exposing ourself, and family to all of the above stated dangers.

It has been said that the Americans, "for ever imagine the Lands further off are still better than those upon which they are already settled." And it has been added that if they attained Paradise, they would move on if they heard of a better place farther west. When will you learn that the hard and rocky paths of life, are those beaten down, and paved over by discontentment and say "I have enough."

Are We Ready

We go to church, the preacher or teacher gives us a message, now what do we do with the message, do we go home and say what a great message, and if someone asked us what made it great?  Would we be able to give them an answer or would we be caught off guard.

Are we like the10 virgins in Mt.25 five were foolish, and five were wise, five were ready,   five were not, all were waiting, but five were waiting in vain.  What are we doing with the fuel God gives us are we putting in our lamps, or are we leaving it behind, and still we wait for the groom unprepared, unconcerned, some of us don’t even put any oil in our lamps at all, we let the preacher or teacher tell us how it is we don’t dig in and check it out, and make sure what there teaching is correct.

I know how this is, because I did it for many years, I believed what I was told, and I was putting bad oil in my lamp. I was not ready. I’m thankful that the bride groom did not come for me for if he had, he would not have not have known me. I still have to keep my lamp trimmed and oiled.  How we do this?  Through much prayer, reading, and meditating on his word, let’s stop being hearers only, but doers of his word.

We have to get our priorities straight, at our church we have homework some of us did not do our homework, so after church some got busy working on their home work other decided to go somewhere to have some fun.  The ones that stayed were wise they had their priorities straight.  The others were foolish; fun was all that was on their minds.  We know not the hour, nor the day when the Lord will return, will he say well done thou good and faithful servant, or will he say I know you not. I’m sure he will say. I wish they all had been ready.

Description of Faith that is Strong

Living by faith:  Believing in everything God says even though you can’t see what lies ahead with your physical eyes.  You have faith that everything that God says will be, will be, no matter what takes places in our lives. The future may look dim to us, trouble may surround use, pain and sorrow may be our constant friend, this in no way hinders us from going forward towards the prize that is set before us.

We need to have a good understanding what faith is: He 11:1” Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.”

We must look at ourselves, search our hearts and see if our faith is standing alone, or is there work involved in our faith.  You can’t kill faith any faster then by letting it stand alone, for if it had even a spark of life, it would die of malnutrition.

 By faith, I can see over the stars in heaven, I can see under the earth beneath, I can see the future. I can see clearly now, my eyes are open, my ears can hear the voice of the Lord leading on toward that Glorious day when I will see not only with my spiritual eyes, but also with my physical eyes.

“For the word of God is a living word and sharper then any two edged sword piercing not only the soul, but the spirit, both joints and marrow, and knows your thoughts and the intentions of your hearts” He 4:12

Nowhere will you see words that speak as these words speak, when you read other books, the words don’t pierce you through your joints and marrow, right down to your soul and spirit, when you read this living book you know the writer knows you, and knows the intents of you heart. Is your faith working for you, or standing alone, dieing of malnutrition. We need to feed upon the living word, and give food to our dieing faith, so it can do the work it was intended to do.  Start walking by faith and not by sight. 

Family: Fathers Redeem the time.

Ephesians 5: 14-16, Wherefore he saith, "Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil".




From the beginnning man has made instruments to measure time, but if one could possiblly brake everything that measures time, it would not stop it, time would continue to march on at the same pace it always has. All of us at sometime have wished that we could go back in time, so we could change the things that we've done, or we might even wish that we could save time, knowing that we will experience some wasted time, or feel we had run out of time, then the time we saved could be spent. The redemption of time is not the mere effort to rescue the fleeting hours of our life, but an effort to lay hold of lifes events, to make the most of them, to allow no distractions of life , or let life stand in the way of the right employment of them.

If we are to redeem the time, we must ask, what is time other than seconds, minutes, hours, days, month, and the such like, so that we can give an exact meaning to time in this instance. It would be best expressed by opportunity, so we should be ever watchful and wise to buy up lifes opportunities, so as to spend them on the best possible moments with each individual member of our family. Reeeming the time is the right management of the opportunities that are meted out to us. We are to buy up opportunities, the idea is that every moment gives an opportuity for some purpose under heaven, and whatever is done in that given space is your purchase.Like the merchant seeking goodly pearls, one need to be accustomed to dealing in pearls, and not just the everyday common run of the mill kind, but goodly pearls those of the best quality. For this merchant, traveled from place to place, finding pearls in every market place, but not all were of the goodly type, he had to carefully inspect each one to determine its quality.We all are accustomed to dealing with lifes opportunities, but much to often unlike the merchant seeking goodly pearls we fail to examine the quality of each opportunity, and settle for the inferior kind. Which brings us to the reasons why the days are evil.

1) The days are evil, because we do not evaluate lifes opportunities.

We are to rightly esteem every event, so we can purchase all the golden opportunities to produce a happy, rich, and fulfilling life in each member of our family.

2) The days are evil, becuase they are few. "For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away" (James 4: 14).

Our entire life is but a little time on the earth, with this as a comparison, let us consider the length of time we have with our children while they are growing up, for this is far shorter, and vanish away much more quickly, conclusion, we have very few golden opportunities with each family member, so we can not afford to lose them.

3) The days are evil, because many of the opportunities of life has already been lost.

Think about all the first things in your family history such as your childs first word, first step, first day of school, first broken heart, first performance ect. These golden opportunities along with many others that has passed, and can never be repeated, nor duplicated now that they are gone, they are forever lost. All of us could tell of some lost opportunity in our live, for we all have experienced them, so let this knowlege work as a powerful stimulus, to lay hold on all of our present, and future golden oportunities in regards to our wife and children.

4) The days are evil, because we are a sleep to the problem of our lost opportunities.

Sleep is an apt figure to describe such an individiual, for he lives in an unreal world, full of dreams, and fantasies, quite unconscious of the real world around him. He dream of more favorable times, and of circumstances that he can control. He is like a man walking in his sleep when he spends his portions of opportunities alotted to him. So he is insensible to the infinite importance of them, he is asleep to the dangers of lost opportunities, so he cares nothing about them.Therefore he needs to be startled from his slumber, and roused from his sleep walking. The cry, "Awake!" must go forth,which is the voice of love, and wisdom, for his house is being pilfered by night.

5) The days are evil, because we do not mourn over the lost oppotunities we have had with our wife or children.

You can redeem the time now by rejoicing in the time you spend with your wife and children, or mourn latter for the time you did not spend with them.

So which one will you choose?

Family the realm of love

A home is a social unit formed by individual members living together. It is also the seminary of all other institutions, for it is there that we build character. What a child will become in latter years is largely determined by his home training and environment. It is there inscribed on the sacred wall of the home the rules of conduct, which are exposed in full view, and there are no substitutes. The value of home to build character is far more reaching then any school, or church can supply, nor is there any place else that a child can be better prepared for life.


Parents and children are each a generation, one generation passes away, and another generation come. From the time of Adam and Eve, the fisrt parents, until present time, there very likely has not been any one generation that has been free from the sorrows of broken relationships. Our present day is witnessing an all -time high on the attack of the family. The enemy's knowlegde, that a house divide against itself will not stand, has resulted in his setting up a very subtle and appealing belief of individuality, it has been successful in separating families, and throwing all of society out of balance, which is a deplorable evil. The struggle of each member of a family to find their own individuality,has brought about a state of confusion in which each member attacks the other, creating wounds and divisions that are not easily corrected. So it can be clearly seen that the strategy of "infighting" is very destructive.

We are living in a time when marriage is entered into very lightly and divorce is away out of dealing with life difficulties. Society safety net divorce, is a traitors cowardly way out of avoiding ones failure, also an act of disloyality, and a violation of the faith and trust that you would always be there for them. The brake down of the family is the leading cause of juvenile delinquency, and illegitmate births reaching an all- time high, because we are simply thrown our families to the wolves.

Our homes should be a realm of love, for it is the thing that every human heart longs for, more than anything else it desires someone to love. It is love that make the heartaches and struggles of life easy to endure. A proper affection for one another in the home, would solve many of our pressing problems, and would eliminate strife, contention, and rivalry, which so often results in a broken homes.

Our nation,as well as our churches, cannot rise any higher than our homes , for the home is the training ground for all other institutions. As the homes are, so are the community, and the church. So if you want to gauge the effect your church is having on your community, just look around your church and that is your effect. The home is much larger than the individuals that make it up the husband, the wife, and the children. A man that takes a wife just to stuff his pocket by her slavery to him, or as a means to attain his own selfish ends, and only treats her as a play thing degrade a woman, and he will not realize the loveiness of his home. The home is not a borrowing institution, were you take out a loan to spent on your fleshly desires, it is your own personal stock market ,and it pays excellent dividends. The member of a family who expects only to draw from the good of the home, and not to make any deposits will soon find that the home has nothing left to give, and will soon end up on the rocks. Here are somethings to help cultive love in the home

1) Above all else, God is to be in every part of your home. " Except the Lord build the house, you labour in vain that buld it" (Psalms 127: 1).

2) Even though the husband is the head of the home, by no means is he to be a dictator over his helpmeet or his children. God saw that is was not good that man should be alone and made a helpmeet for him, so let her help, always remembering that it was not good for you to do it alone.

3) The family's ideals, hopes, plans, and struggles are to be shared by all it members, after all they will have an effect on all of them.

Family: A Message To Men

 Previously I have written somethings concerning my wife and my children, of whom I personally have a great love for. I started at the end of our family history, but that wonderful condition was not always so. I share this in hopes that any that read it, whose family life has entered into the turbulent waters of life, or that has run a ground on the rocks in the shallow pools of human existance may find hope, comfort, and strength. My home as every home, has gone through many hardships, but the thousand battles of its exsistence did cause it to become injured, scarred, and broken, because I refused to see the beauty of its sacred intimacies. So the ship that my wife and I set sail on to travel the journey of life became ship wrecked. Rather than going into the particular of this disastrous trip let us consider the rescue.


After the creation of man, God said, "Therefore shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. 2:24). Until this scripture becomes reality your home has not really yet begun. When I was young I lived with a group of guys,though we lived together, it was not a home, each of us had are own separate lives. So when I became really honest with myself, I realized that my wife and I were living two separate lives. The two becoming one is the fundamental building block of marriage, until you understand that, and make a commitment to that, you will remain separate individuals living separate lives. Once you have estabished this fundamental building block, it will not matter whether you live in a cave or a castle. A man knows that when he leaves his father and mother he takes a wife, but not all cleave unto the wife, nor do they become one flesh. It is a result of a lack of this fundament building block, that one does not naviagate through the troublesome sea of life, which leads to the relationship becoming ship wrecked, or your vessel sinking to the bottom of the abyss.

1) You must make a commitment to the two becoming one fundamental building block, then your home, and rescue will begin. Unless this becomes a steadfast conviction there is no hope of success, because your commitment will be challenged on every front.

2) You need to stop courting other things, and start courting your wife. Your affections will be set on something such as, a job, a career, other women, Ect. Your zeal and vigor must be even greater then what you set on other things. You are not unfamiliar in the pursuits after other things, you certainly know how to court your wife, it may have been along time since you did, but you have pursued after her in the past, and you did win her, so you can do it again. You are not just simply salvaging your marriage, your salvaging yourself.

3) Your motivations must be pure, and you must not expect anything in return. What I mean by this is, whatever you do to court your wife must be done with pure motives, not, because you just got done doing something wrong, and you must not expect that everything is now made right. If that is your motivation then it will show, and do more harm than good. She has heard, I am sorry, I will not do it again, and please forgive me to many times. What is needed is fruit worthy of repentance, and it may take sometime before she see it, and is convinced of it. So unless your motives are pure, and you expect nothing in return, you will become frustrated, overwhemed, and defeated long before your relationship will ascend up from the ruin it is in.

4) You need to veiw your wife as a treasure that you can not affort to lose, nor live without. If you will continuously treat your wife in this manner, when the time comes that you fall short, and those times will come, your quick return to the cultivation of your love, will result in those weeds in the garden of your domestic paradise to be plucked up, and not allow them time to take root.