"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the
sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you
when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil
against you, on account of Me. Rejoice, and be glad for your reward in heaven
is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
One of the true benefits of living in America is that
we are free to practice our faith without fear of persecution. If you focus on
the news reports, it may seem as if that may be ending for American Christians
today but it was especially a harsh fact in the days Jesus walked the earth.
Many places around the world today persecute people for their Christian faith
to the point of killing and imprisonment.
Persecution is not new or foreign to the Christian believer.
In these last three verses of the Beatitudes Jesus addresses this. He is saying
you've reached the highest rung of satisfaction of blessedness when you are
persecuted for His namesake. That is Jesus' description of true faith. It
starts with humility and reaches fruition in obedience.
When does this state of blessedness begin with the believer?
The Greeks believed it began in the afterlife but it is something that begins
the very moment that a person believes on Jesus Christ. This, demonstrated by
the fact that the promise concerning the kingdom of heaven, as in v.3 and v. 10,
is in the present tense, while all the other promises are in the future. The fruit
of one's obedience to the conditions for blessedness begins here, but they are
not all given here. They will be given in their totality in the future, in
heaven.
God's standard is higher than anything we can possibly
obtain. Understanding this puts one on the road to true faith, a road that begins
with the humility that grows out of a sense of utter spiritual poverty, the
knowledge that we are poor in spirit. However, it consummates inevitably in
righteous obedience.
When Jesus wanted to illustrate the character of saving faith,
He took a little child, stood him in the midst of the disciples, and said,
"Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children,
you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matthew 18:3). A child is the
perfect picture of obedient humility, an object lesson about saving faith.
Jesus used this illustration to teach that if we insist on
retaining the privileges of adulthood – if we want to be our own boss, do our own
thing, and govern our own lives - we cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless,
if we are willing to come on the basis of childlike faith and receive salvation
with the humility of a child, with the willingness to surrender to Christ's
authority, then we are coming with the right attitude. Faith obeys - unbelief
rebels. The fruit of one's life reveals whether a person is a believer or an
unbeliever. There is no middle ground.
The blessings of the beatitudes are for a people ready for
the kingdom's coming. This passage shows what kingdom-ready people should be
like; hence, it shows us prerequisites for the kingdom as well as kingdom
promises.
"Blessed are those who have been persecuted for the
sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you
when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil
against you, on account of Me. Rejoice, and be glad for your reward in heaven
is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
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