Pride makes for a wild wandering and wilting of personal character

It's so neat to read a passage that fascinates you, helping you find yourself afresh as it reminds you of where you need to live in your life experience. This passage in Ezekiel has served as a fresh reminder of how pride can precipitate ruin in the best of us. Ezekiel provides a parable, giving a window into God's dealings with Israel and their response to his dealing with them.
Ruin in our lives is easily averted if we but remember afresh our humble beginnings.
Israel forgot its common birth. It was born of Canaanite beginnings, spiritually it seems here.
"your [spiritual] father was an Amorite and your [spiritual] mother a Hittite. [Ezekiel 16:45; John 8:44] AMP
God as it were soaked, swaddled, and sprung Israel into a thriving nation, breeding, bearing, and buoying her when others treated her with contempt rather than with compassion.
God covenanted with her promising seed, nation, blessing to all [Genesis 12:1, 15]
He prospered her exponentially, protecting her in her pouring over in blessing to the nations; yet in her bounty, her reliance on God was shrouded in self-reliance as she spat in the face of her Source.
V.15 says her renown made for self-reliance, which showed itself in spiritual unfaithfulness.
Israel made other gods to herself, making hers the hedonism, harlotry, and even child sacrifice practices of her neighboring nations. Her children were made to pass through the fire of her many places of worship, strewn through a nation, whose God was supposedly, Yahweh "at every crossway you built you high place" [for idol worship] v.25
It was just a matter of time before Israel would force God's hand into acting in way consistent with his place as Just Father-the very hand that created them would now be against them with heart to remedy their ruinous straying from the way right and good. They were faithful to the wrong gods.
v. 33 tells Israel's love of evil was such that they did wrong for the love of doing wrong-they did wrong for the fun of it, not even for pay.
"How weak and spent with longing and lust is your heart and mind, says the Lord God, seeing you do all these things, the work of a bold, domineering harlot," v.30 AMP
God, in his love, was committed righting Israel in her wrongdoing. For his part, he'd take pains to be no more quiet or angry toward Israel-his loving roe.
"Because you have not [earnestly] remembered the days of your youth but have enraged Me with all these things, therefore behold, I also will bring your deeds down on your own head, says the Lord God." v.43 AMP
Sodom's erring ways were nothing compared to Israel's unfaithful meandering away from their faithful One v.49.
Samaria committed not as much as half Israel's sins v.51.
Her trust in her beauty made for her-blessed-becoming an abomination to those near her. She was wholly unsatiable (wanting more, without fill) in her sin-never satisfied till she did more of what beckoned judgment, not blessing.
God had to act in a way consistent with his love for her.
v.52 "Take upon you and bear your own shame and disgrace [in your punishment]," v.52
"Yes, be ashamed and confounded and bear your shame and disgrace,"
The God, who acted in concert with the need of his people allowed her to experience the end of her ways yet promised restoration as his heart is always the good of his people. The very shame he allowed was meant to convert her, making for consolation and comfort to be felt beyond her borders. v.54
Though he deals with us as we've done, he doesn't give us what we deserve, for he is a pitying Father, who knows still we are his. Ps. 112.
His commitment was always to forgive all they'd done; he took pains to uncover their evil. His heart through their winding detour was to realign and renew their minds so that they'd once more be on course to faithful reliance on him to better mirror and live changed by his beauty.
May we see the precancerous development of pride in our lives before it precipitates personal loss by our relying on God. May the roaming costs of displeasing God keep us from wandering again from him.

16:1-58 In this chapter God's dealings with the Jewish nation, and their conduct towards him, are described, and their punishment through the surrounding nations, even those they most trusted in. This is done under the parable of an exposed infant rescued from death, educated, espoused, and richly provided for, but afterwards guilty of the most abandoned conduct, and punished for it; yet at last received into favour, and ashamed of her base conduct. We are not to judge of these expressions by modern ideas, but by those of the times and places in which they were used, where many of them would not sound as they do to us. The design was to raise hatred to idolatry, and such a parable was well suited for that purpose. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary
 

Happy and changed are those, uncontaminated (by sin's lure)-their single (focused, unstained) eyes will see God.

6. The pure in heart are happy; for they shall see God. Here holiness and happiness are fully described and put together. The heart must be purified by faith, and kept for God. Create in me such a clean heart, O God. None but the pure are capable of seeing God, nor would heaven be happiness to the impure. As God cannot endure to look upon their iniquity, so they cannot look upon his purity. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

Those who are pure in heart, and care not for such sights as lead men into sin, are unconsciously preparing themselves for the great spiritual sight - the beatific vision (Revelation 22:4; cf. 1 John 3:2). In Hebrews 12:14 holiness (ἁγιασμός) is an indispensable quality for such a vision of "the Lord."  Pulpit Commentary

Blessed are the pure in heart,.... Not in the head; for men may have pure notions and impure hearts; not in the hand, or action, or in outward conversation only; so the Pharisees were outwardly righteous before men, but inwardly full of impurity; but "in heart"....
they most earnestly desire after more purity of heart, lip, life, and conversation. And happy they are, for they shall see God; in this life, enjoying communion with him, both in private and public, in the several duties of religion, in the house and ordinances of God; where they often behold his beauty, see his power and his glory, and taste, and know, that he is good and gracious: and in the other world, where they shall see God in Christ, with the eyes of their understanding; and God incarnate, with the eyes of their bodies, after the resurrection; which sight of Christ, and God in Christ, will be unspeakably glorious, desirable, delightful, and satisfying; it will be free from all darkness and error, and from all interruption; it will be an appropriating and transforming one, and will last for ever. Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

This heart purity begins in a "heart sprinkled from an evil conscience," or a "conscience purged from dead works" (Heb 10:22; 9:14; and see Ac 15:9); and this also is taught in the Old Testament (Ps 32:1, 2; compare Ro 4:5-8; Isa 6:5-8). The conscience thus purged—the heart thus sprinkled—there is light within wherewith to see God. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: but if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with the other"—He with us and we with Him—"and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us"—us who have this fellowship, and who, without such continual cleansing, would soon lose it again—"from all sin" (1Jo 1:6, 7). "Whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him" (1Jo 3:6); "He that doeth evil hath not seen God" (3Jo 11). The inward vision thus clarified, and the whole inner man in sympathy with God, each looks upon the other with complacency and joy, and we are "changed into the same image from glory to glory." But the full and beatific vision of God is reserved for that time to which the Psalmist stretches his views—"As for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps 17:15). Then shall His servants serve Him: and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads (Re 22:3, 4). They shall see Him as He is (1Jo 3:2). But, says the apostle, expressing the converse of this beatitude—"Follow holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord" (Heb 12:14). Jameison Fausset Brown Bible Commentary

katharos: clean (adjective)

Original Word: καθαρός, ά, όν
Part of Speech: Adjective
Transliteration: katharos
Phonetic Spelling: (kath-ar-os')
Short Definition: clean, pure, unstained
Definition: clean, pure, unstained, either literally or ceremonially or spiritually; guiltless, innocent, upright.

HELPS Word-studies

2513 katharós (a primitive word) – properly, "without admixture" (BAGD); what is separated (purged), hence "clean" (pure) because unmixed (without undesirable elements); (figuratively) spiritually clean because purged (purified by God), i.e. free from the contaminating (soiling) influences of sin. Strong's Concordance

Happy and changed are those, uncontaminated (by sin's lure)-their single (focused) eyes will see God.



 

The merciful won't be miserable

They who are pitiful towards men their brethren are ipso facto the objects of the divine pity. The negative aspect of the same truth is presented in James 2:13. In this case, the promised blessing tends to perpetuate and strengthen the grace which is thus rewarded. No motive to mercy is so constraining as the feeling that we ourselves needed it and have found it. Ellicot's Commentary for English Readers

For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. Hebrews 2:17 NIV

This Beatitude states a self-acting law of the moral world. The exercise of mercy (ἔλεος, active pity) tends to elicit mercy from others—God and men. The chief reference may be to the mercy of God in the final awards of the kingdom, but the application need not be restricted to this....Mercy is an element in true righteousness (Micah 6:8). It was lacking in Pharisaic righteousness (Matthew 23:23). It needed much to be inculcated in Christ’s time, when sympathy was killed by the theory that all suffering was penalty of special sin, a theory which fostered a pitiless type of righteousness (Schanz). Mercy may be practised by many means; “not by money alone,” says Euthy. Zig., “but by word, and if you have nothing, by tears” (διὰ δακρύων). Expositor's Greek Testament

This principle in the divine Government that men shall be dealt with as they deal with their fellow-men is taught in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant, ch. 18, and underlies the fifth petition in the Lord’s Prayer, ch. Matthew 6:12. Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

 (1) in a good sense, zeal towards any one, love, kindness, specially (a) of men amongst themselves, benignity, benevolence, as shown in mutual benefits; mercy, pity, when referring to those in misfortune: Genesis 21:23; 2 Samuel 10:2. LXX. often ἔλεος.—GESENIUS.—(I. B.) Bengel's Gnomen

The merciful are happy. We must not only bear our own afflictions patiently, but we must do all we can to help those who are in misery. We must have compassion on the souls of others, and help them; pity those who are in sin, and seek to snatch them as brands out of the burning. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

Mercy (ἔλεος)
The word emphasizes the misery with which grace (see on Luke 1:30) deals; hence, peculiarly the sense of human wretchedness coupled with the impulse to relieve it, which issues in gracious ministry. Bengel remarks, "Grace takes away the fault, mercy the misery." Vincent's Word Studies

Happy and buoyant are the merciful, for they ease the misery of others by their show of compassion.


 

Happy are the spiritually hungry; they'll be replete with their wholesome craving

Matthew 5:6. Blessed are they which hunger and thirst after righteousness — That, instead of desiring the possessions of others, and endeavouring to obtain them by violence or deceit; and instead of coveting this world’s goods, sincerely, earnestly, and perseveringly desire universal holiness of heart and life, or deliverance from all sinful dispositions and practices, and a complete restoration of their souls to the image of God in which they were created: a just and beautiful description this of that fervent, constant, increasing, restless, and active desire; of that holy ardour and vehemence of soul in pursuit of the most eminent degrees of universal goodness which will end in complete satisfaction: For they shall be filled — Shall obtain the righteousness which they hunger and thirst for, and be abundantly satisfied therewith. Benson Commentary

Those who hunger and thirst after righteousness are happy. Righteousness is here put for all spiritual blessings. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

Blessed are they which do hunger ... - Hunger and thirst, here, are expressive of strong desire. Nothing would better express the strong desire which we ought to feel to obtain righteousness than hunger and thirst. No needs are so keen, none so imperiously demand supply, as these. They occur daily, and when long continued, as in case of those shipwrecked, and doomed to wander months or years over burning sands, with scarcely any drink or food, nothing is more distressing. An ardent desire for anything is often represented in the Scriptures by hunger and thirst, Psalm 42:1-2; Psalm 63:1-2. A desire for the blessings of pardon and peace; a deep sense of sin, and want, and wretchedness, is also represented by thirsting, Isaiah 55:1-2. They shall be filled - They shall be satisfied as a hungry man is when supplied with food, or a thirsty man when supplied with drink. Those who are perishing for want of righteousness; those who feel that they are lost sinners and strongly desire to be holy, shall be thus satisfied. Never was there a desire to be holy which God was not willing to gratify, and the gospel of Christ has made provision to satisfy all who truly desire to be holy. See Isaiah 55:1-3; Isaiah 65:13; John 4:14; John 6:35; John 7:37-38; Psalm 17:15. Barnes Notes on the Bible

Lutheran expositors, and some of our own, seem to have a hankering after that more restricted sense of the term [righteousness] in which it is used with reference to the sinner's justification before God. (See Jer 23:6; Isa 45:24; Ro 4:6; 2Co 5:21). But, in so comprehensive a saying as this, it is clearly to be taken—as in Mt 5:10 also—in a much wider sense, as denoting that spiritual and entire conformity to the law of God, under the want of which the saints groan, and the possession of which constitutes the only true saintship. The Old Testament dwells much on this righteousness, as that which alone God regards with approbation (Ps 11:7; 23:3; 106:3; Pr 12:28; 16:31; Isa 64:5, &c.). As hunger and thirst are the keenest of our appetites, our Lord, by employing this figure here, plainly means "those whose deepest cravings are after spiritual blessings." And in the Old Testament we find this craving variously expressed: "Hearken unto Me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord" (Isa 51:1); "I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord," exclaimed dying Jacob (Ge 49:18); "My soul," says the sweet Psalmist, "breaketh for the longing that it hath unto Thy judgments at all times" (Ps 119:20): and in similar breathings does he give vent to his deepest longings in that and other Psalms. Well, our Lord just takes up here—this blessed frame of mind, representing it as—the surest pledge of the coveted supplies, as it is the best preparative, and indeed itself the beginning of them. "They shall be saturated," He says; they shall not only have what they so highly value and long to possess, but they shall have their fill of it. Not here, however. Even in the Old Testament this was well understood. "Deliver me," says the Psalmist, in language which, beyond all doubt, stretches beyond the present scene, "from men of the world, which have their portion in this life: as for me, I shall behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness" (Ps 17:13-15).

The foregoing beatitudes—the first four—represent the saints rather as conscious of their need of salvation, and acting suitably to that character, than as possessed of it. The next three are of a different kind—representing the saints as having now found salvation, and conducting themselves accordingly. Jameison-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

Shall be filled (χορτασθήσονται)
A very strong and graphic word, originally applied to the feeding and fattening of animals in a stall. In Revelation 19:21, it is used of the filling of the birds with the flesh of God's enemies. Also of the multitudes fed with the loaves and fishes (Matthew 14:20; Mark 8:8; Luke 9:17). It is manifestly appropriate here as expressing the complete satisfaction of spiritual hunger and thirst. Hence Wycliffe's rendering, fulfilled, is strictly true to the original. Vincent's Word Studies

You see many men and women hungering and thirsting after sensual satisfactions, or after sensible enjoyments; these are unhappy, miserable men, they often hunger and thirst, and are not satisfied: but I will show you a more excellent way, a more excellent object of your hunger and thirst, that is, righteousness; both a righteousness wherein you may stand before God, which is in me, Jeremiah 23:6, and is revealed from faith to faith, Romans 1:17, and the righteousness of a holy life. Those are blessed men, who first seek the kingdom of heaven, and the righteousness thereof, God will fill these men with what they desire, Isaiah 55:1,2 Lu 1:53. There are some who understand this text of a hungering after the clearing of their innocency towards men, which is natural to just and innocent persons falsely accused and traduced, and they have a promise of being filled, Psalm 37:6; but I see no reason to conclude this the sense of this text. Matthew Poole's Commentary

They are designated as such whose “great earnestness, desire, and fervour” (Luther) are directed towards a moral constitution free from guilt. Luther, besides, strikingly draws attention to this, that before all these portions of the beatitudes, “faith must first be there as the tree and headpiece or sum” of righteousness. Meyer's NT Commentary

6. This longing for righteousness is God’s gift to the meek. Cambridge Bible for Colleges and Schools

The hunger whose satisfaction is sure is that which contains its own satisfaction. It is the hunger for moral good. The passion for righteousness is righteousness in the deepest sense of the word.—πεινῶντες καὶ διψῶντες. These verbs, like all verbs of desire, ordinarily take the genitive of the object. Here and in other places in N. T. they take the accusative, the object being of a spiritual nature, which one not merely desires to participate in, but to possess in whole. Expositor's Greek New Testament

This was the meat of Jesus himself: see John 4:34; cf. Matthew 3:15. This satisfying fulness He proposes to His followers in the whole of this sermon, and promises and offers them in this very verse. Bengel's Gnomen

The application of the figure of eating and drinking to spiritual things (cf. Luke 22:30) is not infrequent in the Old Testament; e.g. Isaiah 55:1. Yet the thought here is not the actual participation, but the craving. The Benediction marks a distinct stage in our Lord's argument. He spoke first of the consciously poor in their spirit; next of those who mourned over their poverty; then of those who were ready to receive whatever teaching or chastisement might be given them; here of those who had an earnest longing for that right relation to God in which they were so lacking. This is the positive stage. Intense longing, such as can only be compared to that of a starving man for food, is sure of satisfaction. Pulpit Commentary

 


Happy are those who crave truth in life and spiritual blessings; for they'll be replete with the true blue deeper life they crave to possess.

Happy and full of godly character are those, who crave the true blue good right relation with God produces in and through them.
 

Beautitude 3: Everday happiness is theirs, who are harmless for their self-control in relating to others; they'll know peace, comfort, and reward here and hereafter.

(5) The meek.—The word so rendered was probably used by St. Matthew in its popular meaning, without any reference to the definition which ethical writers had given of it, but it may be worth while to recall Aristotle’s account of it (Eth. Nicom. v. 5) as the character of one who has the passion of resentment under control, and who is therefore tranquil and untroubled, as in part determining the popular use of the word, and in part also explaining the beatitude. Ellicot's Commentary for English Readers

The influence of the meek and self-controlled is in the long-run greater than that of the impulsive and passionate. Their serenity helps them to find the maximum of true joy in all conditions of life; for to them the earth is not a stage for self-assertion and the graspings of desire, but an “inheritance” which they have received from their Father.
Many of the best MSS. invert the order of Matthew 5:4-5, and this arrangement has, at all events, the merit of bringing out the latent antithesis between the kingdom of heaven in its unseen greatness and the visible inheritance of the earth. Benson Commentary

3. The meek are happy. The meek are those who quietly submit to God; who can bear insult; are silent, or return a soft answer; who, in their patience, keep possession of their own souls, when they can scarcely keep possession of anything else. These meek ones are happy, even in this world. Meekness promotes wealth, comfort, and safety, even in this world. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

The meek - Meekness is patience in the reception of injuries. It is neither meanness nor a surrender of our rights, nor cowardice; but it is the opposite of sudden anger, of malice, of long-harbored vengeance. Christ insisted on his right when he said, "If I have done evil, bear witness of the evil; but if well, why smitest thou me?" John 18:23. Paul asserted his right when he said, "They have beaten us openly uncondemned, being Romans, and have cast us into prison; and now do they thrust us out privily? nay verily; but let them come themselves, and fetch us out," Acts 16:37. And yet Christ was the very model of meekness. It was one of his characteristics, "I am meek," Matthew 11:29. So of Paul. No man endured more wrong, or endured it more patiently than he. Yet the Saviour and the apostle were not passionate. They bore all patiently. They did not press their rights through thick and thin, or trample down the rights of others to secure their own.

Meekness produces peace. It is proof of true greatness of soul. It comes from a heart too great to be moved by little insults. It looks upon those who offer them with pity. He that is constantly ruffled; that suffers every little insult or injury to throw him off his guard and to raise a storm of passion within, is at the mercy of every mortal that chooses to disturb him. He is like "the troubled sea that cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt."
Barnes Notes on the Bible

the meek, who can be angry, but restrain their wrath in obedience to the will of God, and will not be angry unless they can be angry and not sin; nor will easily be provoked by others, but rather use soft words to pacify wrath, and give place to the passions of others; these are the blessed men. For though others may by their sword and their bow conquer a great deal of the earth to their will and power, yet they will never quietly and comfortably inherit or possess it; they are possessors malae fidei, forcible possessors, and they will enjoy what they have, as rapacious birds enjoy theirs, loudly, every one hath his gun ready charged and cocked against them; but those who are of meek and quiet spirits, though they may not take so deep root in the earth as others more boisterous, yet they shall enjoy what God giveth them with more quiet and certainty; and God will provide for them, verily they shall be fed, Psalm 37:3,11. Matthew Poole's Commentary

Blessed are the meek,.... Who are not easily provoked to anger; who patiently bear, and put up with injuries and affronts; carry themselves courteously, and affably to all; have the meanest thoughts of themselves, and the best of others; do not envy the gifts and graces of other men; are willing to be instructed and admonished, by the meanest of the saints; quietly submit to the will of God, in adverse dispensations of providence; and ascribe all they have, and are, to the grace of God. Meekness, or humility, is very valuable and commendable. The Jews, though a proud, haughty, and wrathful people, cannot but speak in its praise:
"Wisdom, fear, and meekness, say (b) they, are of high esteem; but "meekness", is greater than them all.'' They had two very considerable doctors in the time of Christ, Hillell and Shammai; the one was of a meek, the other of an angry disposition: hence, say they (c), "Let a man be always meek as Hillell, and let him not be angry as Shammai.''
Here meekness is to be considered, not as a moral virtue, but as a Christian grace, a fruit of the Spirit of God; which was eminently in Christ, and is very ornamental to believers; and of great advantage and use to them, in hearing and receiving the word; in giving an account of the reason of the hope that is in them; in instructing and restoring such, who have backslidden, either in principle or practice; and in the whole of their lives and conversations; and serves greatly to recommend religion to others: such who are possessed of it, and exercise it, are well pleasing to God; when disconsolate, he comforts them; when hungry, he satisfies them; when they want direction, he gives it to them; when wronged, he will do them right; he gives them more grace here, and glory hereafter. The blessing instanced, in which they shall partake of, is, Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Beautitude 3: Everday happiness is theirs, who are harmless for their self-control in relating to others; they'll know peace, comfort, and reward here and hereafter.

Beautitude 2: Happy are we, though we mourn the murkying of life's stream

First Beatitude: Lifelong felicity (birthday cake word for daily happiness) and fortune (spiritual, sometimes physical, more so eternal) belong to those bold enough to brave the compartments of their lives, which cry not just for attention but careful improvement.

Happiness is in God's promise to us as we attend to the neglected areas in our lives and in others' too; this happiness rises on the comfort God bestows for our having the audacity to preen the dirt out of our life spaces. 

4. Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted—This "mourning" must not be taken loosely for that feeling which is wrung from men under pressure of the ills of life, nor yet strictly for sorrow on account of committed sins. Evidently it is that entire feeling which the sense of our spiritual poverty begets; and so the second beatitude is but the complement of the first.  Jameison Fausset Brown Bible Commentary

Taking an honest inquiry into where we truly are in our private lives can be painfully revealing-it can make for tears and sorrow, which run deep. Many times we may feel  beyond repair in those areas, where we need to grow. But as our position is one of repentance, we can know assured that God values our inclination to improve. His is strength to be more; his is comfort as we follow through on cleaning house in our lives.

The mourning here is primarily the spiritual kind over sin in us and others but can apply to mourning we meet in loss and affliction as well. Loss and suffering can leave quite the stain.

Sin and its stain do leave indelible blotch marks in our lives; but Christ's comfort and happiness give power to rise and thrive again.

Comfort (counsel), pardon, peace, purity, and freedom is ours in our Paraclete the indwelling Spirit as we mourn our neglect and sin.

They shall be comforted.—The pronoun is emphatic. The promise implies the special comfort (including counsel) which the mourner needs; “comforted” he shall be with the sense of pardon and peace, of restored purity and freedom. We cannot separate the promise from the word which Christendom has chosen (we need not now discuss its accuracy) to express the work of the Holy Ghost the Comforter, still less from the yearning expectation that then prevailed among such of our Lord’s hearers as were looking for the “consolation”—i.e., the “comfort”—of Israel (Luke 2:25). Ellicot's Commentary for English Readers

Matthew 5:4. Blessed [or happy] are they that mourn — Namely, for their own sins and those of other men, and are steadily and habitually serious, watchful, and circumspect; for they shall be comforted — Even in this world, with the consolation that arises from a sense of the forgiveness of sins, peace with God, clear discoveries of his favour, and well-grounded, lively hopes of the heavenly inheritance, and with the full enjoyment of that inheritance itself in the world to come. Benson Commentary

Heaven is the joy of our Lord; a mountain of joy, to which our way is through a vale of tears. Such mourners shall be comforted by their God. Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

Blessed are they that mourn - This is capable of two meanings: either, that those are blessed who are afflicted with the loss of friends or possessions, or that they who mourn over sin are blessed. As Christ came to preach repentance, to induce people to mourn over their sins and to forsake them, it is probable that he had the latter particularly in view. Compare 2 Corinthians 7:10. At the same time, it is true that the gospel only can give true comfort to those in affliction, Isaiah 61:1-3; Luke 4:18. Other sources of consolation do not reach the deep sorrows of the soul. They may blunt the sensibilities of the mind; they may produce a sullen and reluctant submission to what we cannot help: but they do not point to the true source of comfort. In the God of mercy only; in the Saviour; in the peace that flows from the hope of a better world, and there only, is there consolation, 2 Corinthians 3:17-18; 2 Corinthians 5:1. Those that mourn thus shall be comforted. So those that grieve over sin; that sorrow that they have committed it, and are afflicted and wounded that they have offended God, shall find comfort in the gospel. Through the merciful Saviour those sins may be forgiven. In him the weary and heavy-ladened soul shall find peace Matthew 11:28-30; and the presence of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit, shall sustain them here John 14:26-27, and in heaven all their tears shall be wiped away, Revelation 21:4. Barnes Notes on the New Testament

I remember too well my time as a counselor on the Mercy Ships vessel Logos, where a lady, who had just experienced the pain and stain of a divorce took solace in the comfort of this passage. Every divorce has two guilty parties. Bewailing her sin and those of her husband; she lay hold on the promise in Isaiah 61:1-3 NIV with passion.

1The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me

to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives

and release from darkness for the prisoners,^a

2to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor

and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn,

3and provide for those who grieve in Zion—

to bestow on them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord

for the display of his splendor.

The world is mistaken in accounting the jocund and merry companions the only happy men; their mirth is madness, and their joy will be like crackling of thorns under a pot: but those are rather the happy men, who mourn; yea, such are most certainly happy, who mourn out of duty in the sense of their own sins, or of the sins of others, or who mourn out of choice rather to suffer afflictions and persecutions with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season. Though such sufferings do excite in them natural passions, yet it is a blessed mourning, for those are the blessed tears which God will wipe at last from his people’s eyes, and such are these. Matthew Poole's Commentary

Second Beautitude: He is pardon, purity, peace, and new-found freedom to live and love fully. Though we'll be stymied by sin and suffering we and others face; He is our strength (com-fort) to live happily.

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Happy are those who know they haven't arrived Part 2

Sure happiness is the porterhouse of those who own their need to improve daily. #Blessed Matt. 5:3 #Godsparadoxes

Happy are we, who know we haven't yet arrived. We walk into the doorway of the kingdom of heaven and are filled with joy to understand our new-found position in Christ, for seeing the "New Creation" sign on the lintel of the doorpost. However, with time soon pride steps in and we are overcome with a sense of over-significance. We look back to see the "Under Construction" sign. Moral poverty, which led us to cry with the publican "Be merciful to me a sinner," soon gave way to over-confidence and a bloated self-concept. God used life to drop kick us into knowing once more our spiritual poverty and need to improve in so many dimensions. Poverty revealed in so many compartments of our lives makes us reckon with our moral helplessness apart from God's grace and is a conduit God uses to help us just as he can use riches to similar end to help us improve our state of affairs and happen on abiding happiness for our due diligence.

The poor in spirit are those, who aren't overcome by a sense of over-significance because of their place in God's economy.


They know they haven't arrived; they know moral bankruptcy in different dimensions of their lives and live committed to living more wholeheartedly for improving in those areas.

those who feel within them, the opposite of having enough, and of wanting nothing in a moral point of view; to whom, consequently, the condition of moral poverty and helplessness is a familiar thing,—as the praying publican, Luke 18:10 (the opposite in Revelation 3:17; 1 Corinthians 4:8), was such a poor man. Meyer's NT Commentary

The greater part of mankind are insensible of this their condition; but think themselves rich, and increased with goods: there are some who are sensible of it, who see their poverty and want, freely acknowledge it, bewail it, and mourn over it; are humbled for it, and are broken under a sense of it; entertain low and mean thoughts of themselves; seek after the true riches, both of grace and glory; and frankly acknowledge, that all they have, or hope to have, is owing to the free grace of God. Now these are the persons intended in this place; who are not only "poor", but are poor "in spirit"; in their own spirits, in their own sense, apprehension, and judgment: and may even be called "beggars", as the word may be rendered; for being sensible of their poverty, they place themselves at the door of mercy, and knock there; their language is, "God be merciful"; their posture is standing, watching, and waiting, at wisdom's gates, and at the posts of her door; they are importunate, will have no denial, yet receive the least favour with thankfulness.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Blessed are the {a} poor in {b} spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
(a) Under the name of poverty are meant all the miseries, that are joined with poverty.(b) Whose minds and spirits are brought under control, and tamed, and obey God.
Geneva Study Bible

Verse 3. - Blessed (μακάριοι); Vulgate, beati; hence "Beatitudes." The word describes "the poor in spirit," etc., not as recipients of blessing (εὐλογημένοι) from God, or even from men, but as possessors of "happiness" (cf. the Authorized Version of John 13:17, and frequently). It describes them in reference to their inherent state, not to the gifts or the rewards that they receive. Pulpit Commentary

They may not know gift or reward till the afterlife; but their blessing in this life is that in their improving daily they become permanent possessors of happiness.