Poverty of Spirit

Blessed are the poor in spirit. A free gift that costs everything.

When  someone tells you something you can gauge it’s importance by it’s placement.  First things mentioned are first for a reason.  This pronouncement is the first command the Lord gave outside of, "Repent and and believe.”  So this is a cause to pause.

Like most of the New Testament,  this can only be understood by looking at the Old.  Poverty of spirit and blessedness were Jewish ideas.

The first time  we read of poverty of spirit is the book of Psalms. What do we learn  about poverty of spirit?

 David exclaims,

Ps.69:29 But I [am] poor and sorrowful: let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.
30 I will praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with thanksgiving.
31 [This] also shall please the LORD better than an ox [or] bullock that hath horns and hoofs.
32 The humble shall see [this, and] be glad: and your heart shall live that seek God.
33 For the LORD heareth the poor, and despiseth not his prisoners.

1. First, The poor in spirit recognize that all they have is from God (“let thy salvation save me”, and therefore seeks (“your heart shall live that seeks the Lord”) all from God.
“Of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory forever and ever.” Rom.11:34
 The poor in spirit are persecuted. Ps.69.33. 
This is because a person who fears God goes against the grain of the world.  The world proclaims it’s self sufficiency.  God declares we did not make ourselves.  God upholds us and directs all things according to His will.

 2. The  poor and needy  wait for God’s deliverance and praise Him for His work.
Ps.70:5 But I [am] poor and needy: make haste unto me, O God: thou [art] my help and my deliverer; O LORD, make no tarrying.

 3. The poor  tremble at God’s word

Is.66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven [is] my throne, and the earth [is] my footstool: where [is] the house that ye build unto me? and where [is] the place of my rest?
2 For all those [things] hath mine hand made, and all those [things] have been, saith the LORD: but to this [man] will I look, [even] to [him that is] poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. (Is.66:1-2)
Where the word of the king is, there is power Solomon said.  So the Lord when  He speaks  like EF Hutton, people should listen.
 Poor look to the mercy of God. They tremble because they have sinned.
“a poor and contrite spirit”
We have no defense before God for we have sinned and so  trust only mercy. 

 4. God looks at the poor,  and esteems their honesty.  “to this man will I look.”
Do we want God to look at us?  Then we need to  look to Him in a poor spirit.
This is the attitude of the Psalmist," as the yes of a servant wait for their Master so do we wait for you."

5. The poor have a blessing.  God preaches good news to them.

Lk.4:18 The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, (Luke 4:18)
The broken hearted, the poor in spirit, are delivered.  Three things are promised to the poor in spirit:
a. Heals our heart
b.Delivers the captives
c. Gives us sight
Our sickness of heart is epithumia kaki. Evil desire.  Because we have  stopped desiring the True Good, God, we desire  material  goods,  and so  stray from  His presence.
When He heals (a) the desire by  filling us with Christ’s love (Rom.5:5)  then we are delivered from the law of sin and death (b) then we truly see (c).

But how do we get to this point of being poor?
Mostly by failing and the pride of our strength is broken like the prophet foretold.  God graciously let’s us fall and break  some bones.  Like David said,
“may the bones which you have broken  rejoice.” (Ps.51)
It is truly blessed then to be poor in spirit