Thanks freedom.... Good link and I have bookmarked it.
Right at the beginning of His sermon on the mount, Jesus contradicted all human judgements and all nationalistic expectations of the Kingdom of God.
The Kingdom is given to the poor, not the rich; the feeble, not the mighty; to little children humble enough to accept it, not to soldiers who boast that they can obtain it by their own bravery, skill or superior ability.
Now when He saw the crowds, He went up on a mountainside and sat down. His disciples came to Him, and he began to teach them saying
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. Matthew 4:1-3
These. beatitudes are our balance and characterize our Christians attitudes and character. They are what every Christain ought to be.
The eight blessings are given to every Christian and the first that I was focusing on deals with something that doesn't sound much like a blessing to our ears: be " poor in spirit"
Sometimes as I reflect about all that we have in our countries we forget about the "have nots." I was thinking of the times I went on short term missions and saw how the "have nots" are in a sense richer than us because their attitudes of greed and pride of life do not exist.The people are redilly accepting of the gospel and as we passed out tracks , I did not see one that was tossed on the ground . In fact they were running after us to get a track. They have nothing and to them the gospel gives them hope. In their poverty Christ extends His vast arms and they are so accepting.
So to me poor in spirit is a total relyance on God. and recognizing our spiritual bankruptcy before God our Heavenly Father. We are nothing but sinners, under the holy wrath of God, and deserving nothing but His judgement. We have nothing to offer, nothing to plead, nothing with which to buy the favour of Heaven.
Perhaps the way we can look at what riches does is to look at the church in Laodicea.