Matthew 5: 3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven’.

The Sermon on the Mount can be divided into four sections. Jesus started to preach on attitudes, moved on to actions, then to the alarms and finally the awards in life - after death. It is the attitude that matters foremost to God and not the aptitude or the altitude in life.

The world acknowledges the rich, the independent, the dynamic, the intelligent, the smart, the go-getters and the highly successful as blessed, but Jesus taught that when a person feels he is in abject poverty in the realm of the spirit - he is truly Blessed!

Anyone with a sense of need, knowing that he has nothing and values himself as nothing, but wholly dependent on God to fulfill his every need is ‘poor in the spirit’. It makes the person feel that without God he is morally, physically and spiritually bankrupt. King David knew about this bankruptcy when he cried to God – ‘I have no good in me Lord, apart from thee’ (Psalm 16:2).

Rationally thinking, when pride is so broken down in a person, it becomes so much easier for him to seek help from anybody, even God. Pride makes a man boastfully claim or think ‘I did it myself’ and False humility asserts that ‘I never did anything but only God did it’ but Humility stoops to confess that ‘with God’s help I did it’. Heaven backs up those who think less of themselves and God gives grace only to the humble.

Thought for the day: A Christian who is poor in the spirit casts himself totally on the mercy of God and gets blessed.