In Matthew 4:23-24 we read of Jesus preaching “the gospel of the kingdom” and “healing all kinds of disease and sickness among the people”. The news of Him was spreading and they were bringing all who were ill or demonized and the scripture records “He healed them” . Large crowds were gathering, and in Matthew 5 we read the so-called sermon on the mount beginning with what is commonly referred to as “The Beatitudes”.
It has often interested me that as Jesus looks out on these large crowds, and all kinds of astounding needs and conditions, He begins His comments by laying the foundation of the kingdom upon the base of poverty. But, not just any poverty, like the lack of health or the lack of material wealth He may have been looking at. He begins as his first comment, saying that if you are lacking in spirit, specifically “poor in spirit”, you are blessed and the kingdom of heaven is yours.
[Matthew 5:3 NASB95] 3 “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
It seems a kind of strange place to start, particularly in enumerating the blessed, when so many are before Him with physical and material lacking and seemingly un-blessed. Why was the first blessing and priority mentioned based on poverty and lacking, and what does it mean to be “poor in spirit”? I am not certain I fully understand, or that I am qualified to define it, but I do know that He is dealing with, as our first priority and disposition, our desperation to fully understand our need for Him, the Father, and the kingdom. We have to comprehend we are helplessly hopeless outside of Him. We are like children desperately dependent.
Desperately dependent children! That is what I think Jesus saw in those gathered before Him . It wasn’t the satisfied, positioned, wealthy, and haughty He gazed out upon so much. But those without… without health, without position, without arrogance, without hope… without much of anything. So, he begins setting up the paradox, enigma, dichotomy that when we are without anything by which we can help ourselves, or without anything we have or anything we can do to earn for ourselves or … more importantly, to and for or from God, we are in the place of blessing. The place where God can do the most in, for, and through us. He does not need us. He does not need us to do to or for Him. He alone is God and the source of all things and sufficient unto Himself.
To be poor is variously defined Biblically as reduced to beggary, begging, asking alms, making a living by begging. It is to be destitute of wealth, influence, position, or honor, lowly, afflicted, without virtue or riches worldly or eternal. It is to be helpless, powerless to accomplish an end, needy, lacking in anything and everything.
This is not a state we, in our Western mindset, ever aspire to. And yet, in terms of “in spirit, it is the key to possessing the kingdom of heaven.
Spirit here is the Greek pneuma which Strong’s defines as a “movement of air”, or commonly “breath”. Biblical usage of the term is in reference to the Holy Spirit; as well as the vital principal that animates the body giving life; and as the influence that governs the soul (and there are others). So, I suppose a lot of time could be spent debating what is meant in this term here. I am inclined, given the context of desperation Jesus is using here, to see it in a very literal sense as breath. I cannot live without it, I am desperate for each one I take and that I am given. It is at once very natural in my being and living by it, and yet , it is very supernatural in terms of my need and desperation for it. I am so dependent upon it that I cannot exist without its source, although I do not fully know where the next one will come from. I can do nothing without it!
The New American Standard Version gives a very interesting interpretive footnote at the word “poor” in Matthew 5:3. It says: i.e. those who are not spiritually arrogant . Generally the NASB renders these footnotes as literal translations, but this is not labeled as such here. But I find it an extremely interesting interpretation in that my own experience has been, and in counseling others I have found, and in many biblical character studies as well; It definitely comes out that when you think you know it all, God has a very consistent tendency, and way, of revealing to you that you, being wise in your own eyes, do not in fact know much at all.
Many of the warnings to the churches in John’s Revelation speak to this kind of arrogance of spirit leading to failing, but perhaps none more so than this to the Laodiceans:
[Revelation 3:17-18 NASB95] 17 ‘Because you say, “I am rich, and have become wealthy, and have need of nothing,” and you do not know that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, 18 I advise you to buy from Me gold refined by fire so that you may become rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself, and [that] the shame of your nakedness will not be revealed; and eye salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.
Oh!… that we may comprehend our ongoing need of Him and His full provision, not relying on our own understanding or own inspiration for direction. We need to hear His voice, and see His revelations.
When we lean on our own understanding we negate the necessity of hearing from and knowing Him. (Consider, perhaps, the recent exhortation in this space regarding drawing from and feeding from the tree of life as His original intent, rather than desiring knowledge from the tree or the knowledge of good and evil outside His purpose.) We need Him, to hear from and feed from Him.
[John 5:37-40 NASB95] 37 “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. 38 “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. 39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
They did not recognize Him, nor their need of Him, when He was right in front of them. And, He was bearing the Father’s testimony and revelation regarding Himself. When we compare the Pharisees (and scribes and Sadducees, for that matter) who overlooked Jesus, because they trusted what they knew and could intellectually figure out instead of comprehending their need of Him and the life that was in Him, with Jesus attitude in His ministry, we see this poor in spirit element in a new light. By comparison Jesus would say of Himself that He was totally dependent on His Father.
[John 5:26-27, 30-32, 37-40 NASB95] 26 “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself; 27 and He gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is [the] Son of Man. …
30 “I can do nothing on My own initiative. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is just, because I do not seek My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. 31 “If I [alone] testify about Myself, My testimony is not true. 32 “There is another who testifies of Me, and I know that the testimony which He gives about Me is true. …
(and again) 37 “And the Father who sent Me, He has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time nor seen His form. 38 “You do not have His word abiding in you, for you do not believe Him whom He sent. 39 “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; 40 and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life.
Out of this kind of relationship and dependency on His Father Jesus would say to his disciples…and to us
[John 15:4-5 NASB95] 4 “Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither [can] you unless you abide in Me. 5 “I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.
(read also of how Jesus emptied Himself in Philippians 2:5-8, and how the apostle encourages us to that same position/attitude – and ask yourself is this being poor in spirit? He laid down all He had, not tightly grasping, holding on to, His equality with God to take on the form of a man, a bond servant. He was dependent on His Father in His purpose even unto death on a cross.)
I have often cited Ephesians 1:21-22 which indicates that the church is His body, the fullness of Him that fills all in all. But we must be empty, if we are to hold His fullness. We must be desperately in need of His life, His breath/Spirit to fill us and animate us in His purpose.
This kind of desperate dependence on Him, desperately desiring to know Him, be like Him, manifest Him and His life, knowing and comprehending our/my need of Him like the next breath. This is, I think, to be poor in spirit. But the riches in exchange are to find the fullness of the kingdom of heaven is yours under His Lordship.
I sometimes watch my son, who has 5 boys (age 12-2), and I marvel at their love, trust, and need for him as Daddy. Even when He disciplines them. They are oblivious to much around them in the world, but they naturally comprehend his love, and their need of him. And, they somehow, supernaturally, know He will provide all they need for life.
Let us have the heart and mind of helplessly hopeless little children in desperate need of everything… calling out Abba Father… and coming to His arms ….as even unto the tree of life.
[Matthew 19:14 NASB95] 14 But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
[Mark 10:14 NASB95] 14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
[Luke 18:16 NASB95] 16 But Jesus called for them, saying, “Permit the children to come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
[Matthew 18:1-4 NASB95] 1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.