The wonderful promise of complete satisfaction and how to keep it

Happy Friday GCT:  Throughout Scripture you can trace basically everywhere that our loving heavenly Father wants us to be blessed.  The words for “blessed" in the Hebrew and Greek are so much greater than what our one syllable word really communicates.  God is wanting us to take hold of the eternal truth that He wants us to be completely satisfied in Him knowing that He has promised us great blessings in Him.  Our Father promises us blessings and He does not break His promises.  And because He is God and He has promised great eternal blessings, He then also has the authority to put boundaries on those blessings.  He says, I love you and I will bless you abundantly as long as you do this and do that.  He says, hey, if you do that and that over there you will not be blessed.  This is evidenced all through the Old Testament with God calling His people to obey His law and delight in His law and dwell on it day and night and so they will be blessed.  That is everywhere.  There is story after story of Israel refusing to obey and God removing His blessing from them.  His promises to walk with them remained but the blessing was removed as they lived in disobedience.   Now in Luke 6, just like His Father, Jesus does the same thing with the establishment of His Church, the Apostles and the disciples.  Jesus gives us the beatitudes.  Jesus says  this is how you will be blessed, deeply satisfied and joy-filled in Me.  Also, this is how you will be miserable, “Woe to you!”  Woe, communicates, “horror!"  Woe communicates "How terrible!"  Here is the beginning of His list of “blessings” and “woes" from Luke 6:20-26.

Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.
Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.
Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.
Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!
Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.
Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.
Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.
Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

Wow, that is a convicting list!  What was Jesus communicating to His people who were the foundation of His new community, the Church?  Was He saying that we should we go and sell everything, actually give everything away and live in the woods without any food while seeking to be forever sad and weeping just to be blessed?  Is he saying that the physically hungrier you are and the materially poorer you are and emotionally sadder you are the more holy you are? No, Jesus is not saying that.

Jesus, is pulling from the Old Testament the guidelines for His new community of believers.  Jesus is saying, this is how you will be deeply satisfied and joy-filled in Me!  Recognize your spiritual poverty, that you have nothing to bring to this relationship but your obedience and dependence on Me.  I want you to trust Me not your works.  Don’t trust in wealth and riches they are a bad investment.  I am the best investment.  I want you to hunger for Me not the world and its delicacies.  I want you to be satisfied in Me by hungering and thirsting for Me not what the culture says you should hunger and thirst for.  I want you to weep over your own sinfulness and how quick you are to go back into that sinfulness instead of living a life of perpetual entertainment and pleasure that does not acknowledge the dreadful condition that this world is in.  I want you to understand that if you do these things like I am saying, you will most likely be excluded and reviled by society, that is OK, it is better than everybody always speaking well of you.  This is what has happened to Me as well, rejoice when that happens and be filled with joy, because this is what has happened to me!  Don’t expect to be any different.

Anybody want to sign up to be a part of this counter-cultural community?
Will the things you are hungering for last?
Are you weeping over your own sin and the sins of others?
Are you being reviled for Christ?

Lord Jesus, give us the strength to live like this.

See you Sunday, blessed, completely satisfied! - Steve